


A World I Never Made

by shadow_in_the_shade



Series: Of Man's Bedevilment and Gods [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Barman! Heimdall, Biker!Thor, Incest, LoungeSinger!Loki, M/M, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-12 15:14:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1189854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_in_the_shade/pseuds/shadow_in_the_shade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU, in which biker!Thor meets LoungeSinger!Loki in a seedy but somewhat special club of a semi - mystical nature. Thorki, with many scenes of a rather graphic nature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**A World I Never Made**

**“How am I to face the odds/ Of man’s bedevilment and Gods/ I a stranger and afraid/ In a world I never made” – A.E Housman**

**1.**

The barman at _The Lokasenna_ has seen a lot of shit since the club first opened; good shit, boring shit, bad shit – so much bad shit now that a lot of it has passed into the realm of boring shit. He has seen more than he will ever tell you, and tell you but a fraction of all that he has seen. Seasons come and seasons go, and so with the people like the push and pull of the tides. He has seen them all before, these waifs and strays that wash up on this shore – a shore of bar stools and sticky table tops, coughed up by the sputtering sea of the highway, that rolling constant thing eternal beyond the grimy windows and the sickly neon lights.

For all anyone knows _The Lokasenna_ is just as eternal. Nobody remembers a time when the club was not there, nobody, not even the oldest of the locals can remember it being built. It just appeared, it seemed, out of the rain-washed  concrete on the crappy side of town, resplendent and awful in its slick shine of fading pink and green light. Locals may work there but they never frequent it.

No, the clientele are all the scattered debris of the sea, falling in here, never as though they quite meant to. They come in and shake off their stories in patterns that cycle over and over without cease, lifetime after lifetime that would have worn away the patience of any other poor bastard behind the bar. But Heimdall never tires, he knows the patterns and the cycles, he knows these lives and he never tires of hearing them recounted, for there are inflections in every story, in every life that make it new, that make it beautiful and strange and in hearing them he lives them. In seeing them pass by he partakes of their lives - from that place behind the bar, the place where you will always find him.

One thing Heimdall has never seen is the amount of drink this man can put away, and believe him when he tells you he has seen a lot of men put away a lot of drink. He is standing ready with the refill before the man has even finished crying for “Another!” and slammed his third triple Jack down on the bar top.

“What say you just save yourself some work and give me the whole damn bottle?” the man grins with a smile more charming than his words.

“With all due respect sir, that I shall not do. Though you are welcome to make your way through it in such manner as you have already begun”.

The man grumbles good-naturedly enough and knocks back a good half of the drink, watching the dark liquid swirl in the glass and frowning as though listening musingly to the chink of the ice.

And this, Heimdall considers, is why he has not seen this man before, nor a reflection of him in any passer-by yet come this way. For though these men - men who seem precarious perched upon a bar stool, with the highway in their leathers and the wind in their hair and eyes – are not uncommon, rarely do they listen so tenderly to the chink of the ice at the bottom of a whiskey glass. This one looks at the ice in the empties, glimmering under the lights as though it could tell him a story he half knows but cannot quite remember. And it could, Heimdall knows it, it could tell him many a tale. This one has been coming in every other night for a week now, roaring his bike upside of the window and coming back for it in the morning, groaning that he _could_ have driven home that night, he really could. Heimdall knows, because he always knows, that _home_ right now is the motel off Junction 19 but he does not point this out any more than to correct the other inaccuracy- just hands the man his bike keys and says he’ll see him again. Because he will. He knows this too. When a person’s time here is spent, and when there is still more story here to tell.

He has heard this man’s story in snatches over the last few days, though he did not need to hear it to know it. The story of a poor family from nowhere, of a father he hated, of a mother who was the only thing keeping him there, of how she died some three years ago and how he got on his bike the day after the funeral and never stopped riding. And there are the parts he does not tell that Heimdall knows all the same because he always knows, of the brother he lost when he was twelve, given up for adoption in spite of all of his own and his mother’s tears, of the hole this leaves in him that he feels is surely greater than it should be and of which he never speaks. A common enough story, if an uncommon man. A story with so many chapters left to go. Heimdall wonders if he drinks to forget his past or remember his way into a future. Sometimes they blur all together. He has an idea about this man’s future, an idea that it begins here tonight, in _The Lokasenna_ , that its coming is foretold in the clicks and bangs of amps and microphones being set up on the stage behind them, of the curtain backdrop falling into place, of the stage lights coming on.

Thor ignores all this, he always does. He does not come here for anyone else’s show but his own. For his life is more his own now than it has ever been and he has little interest other than in the drink he needs to fill the hole in his heart. He does not even know quite how it got there or what he really seeks, only that no fleeting connection he has made along the road has connected to his blood that shrieks for something else. Indeed he has confessed more of himself to this unknown, almost silent barman than he has to anyone these past three years. He adds the fourth glass to his growing collection with a grunt and is just starting on preparing a fifth for that collection when he hears the click of the microphone and the rustling sound that is a precursor to speech. His heart sinks a little in preparation, hating this cheesy lounge singer shit that interferes with his perfect plan to get quietly, benignly slaughtered, and _that voice_ cuts into his dull drifting complacency like a knife to the head and kills it forever –

“Good evening Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’re all enjoying tonight’s dulcet path towards tomorrow’s raging hangover. Here’s one for all you gents in the audience.”

The voice is low and growling as a faraway storm cloud with an edge to it like gleaming ice; dipped with that faint touch of sarcasm that both abuses the listener and demands that they love it. Something in that voice speaks to something low down in Thor, causing ripples that brush pleasantly with the river of whiskey in the belly. Just because they provide no long term cure for his undiagnosed heart does not mean he does not still have an eye for the ladies.

“ _Who_ is she?” he mutters aloud, turning round to look against his better judgement. He has no sooner glanced at the stage than he spins back round, choking on his drink and banging a fist into the bar – “Dear _fuck!”_

He glares up to meet Heimdall’s faint, possibly – sympathetic smile and his nodding face –

“ _She_ is a _he,”_ he affirms, as though Thor had not worked that out already and this is the cause for his cursing.  

“Fuck.” Thor re-iterates, for lack of a better expression.

“You’re not the first,” Heimdall shrugs, though it is possible he is referring to more than Thor realises.

Unable to help himself Thor looks back. The singer is butchering a song he has heard grinding its sordid way out of so many bars, a song he has always loved for its filthy beat, foul rhythm and sensually violent words. This version has the same perky bouncy beat of every lounge-singer-song he has ever heard, and he would like to take the singer by the throat for it. He looks for longer than he intended; the man dazzles with green sequins, spins and twists across the stage with top hat and cane and a sinuous grace that he grudgingly admits to himself surpasses any other act this crappy. Yet there is something to the face beneath that hat that makes him feel distinctly uncomfortable, something in the arch of those sardonic eyebrows and the twist of the smirking lips that bring a filthiness back to the words that the beat did not intend. Even from this distance he can see the deep flash of green in the young man’s darkly lined eyes, a green that is only half the reflection of sequin and spangle. He can see the curl of those slender pale fingers around the top of the cane and the slick swish of the dark hair against that pale throat that make him think all the more about taking that throat and squeezing –

He turns away fast, cursing again under his breath, for his thoughts are beginning to take a highly unwanted turn. This is strange and alien to him and really not what he wants; he has no interest in men, he never has, so why in the hell? He growls out the request for another with a greater urgency than Heimdall has yet heard from him. He is ready with another other when Thor drains the first in an instant.

“Do you want to rephrase?” Heimdall asks, Thor scowls, trying to remember what question he had asked, so long ago now it was - three drinks away. He nods remembering, no he is not sure he does not want to know anymore, he is not sure he should not just leave and never come back before this all goes weird. But he won’t back out like that much of a coward, he motions his forefingers in a circular gesture _yes I shall continue –_

“Who is _he?”_ he rephrases. Heimdall cannot resist a slight _so glad you asked_ expression –

“Name’s Loki –” and he adds with just a touch of inevitability – “He’s in again on Monday.”

Thor nods and makes his first mental note to not be here on Monday, but he foolishly meets Heimdall’s eye and they share a look that suggests they both know that he will be.

__x__

 

**I don’t know what’s happened to me! I hate AU’s! I especially hate modern day Thorki AU’s! Okay here’s what happened, I was listening to Richard Cheese, not wholly on perpose and got this image of Loki as a cheesy lounge singer singing his covers, this developed in the course of a conversation with the very much to blame but lovely Zedrobber into the creation of a whole AU with biker!Thor/ Loungesinger!Loki. Zed started doing illustrations for this, I said “I know I’ll write some ficlets for these pictres”. Ficlets my arse. Now this is happening and I’ve kinda fallen for it hook, line and sinker. It may grow into another of my beasts. (Though fear not I have not forgotten my other beastly babies, I still have plans for “All the stars fell” and the “Colours of Asgard” series!)**

**For those that were wondering Loki was singing the Richard Cheese version of “Closer” the original of course being that infinite gift offered to slashfic writers by Nine Inch Nails.**

**The next chapter, to balance out this one, will be Loki – centric.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chronologically this comes before chapter 1, and yes I know it changes tense a couple of times, this _is_ on purpose, explanations at the end!**

**2.**

_You know this place of course, you’ve been here before- if only in a dream. Or if you have not, you will come there soon in a dream still to be had. This is_ The Lokasenna _when lies are true and truths become lies, or if it is not that straightforward, then at any rate the two intermingle until it is no longer important which is the truth and which the lie._

It was as though the place had whispered these things to Loki, when he first peered up through the rain into those sickly, beautiful lights spilling out into the street. _You belong to me, dear one._ It seemed to beckon him in with those words, words that he had never heard before and could only imagine; he could imagine them coming out of the mouth of this building more than from any human he had ever met. Ah, belonging, it was such a dear sweet dream. He had some time ago started to steer away from places that promised to be too tempting, promised himself never again to become attached not even to a place- perhaps especially not to a place.

“I don’t do attached,” he whispered aloud to the front door in refutation of the offer it gave out. But the rain had soaked though his hair and was starting to trickle down his neck; his back pack felt heavy with rain and the last reassuring ten dollar bill in his pocket was soon going to fall apart with the rain seeping through his clothes.

“Damn it” he muttered – “And damn you,” he added to the building as he gave in to the lure of inside and warmth and potential absinthe to warm, nay burn the throat.

“Probably don’t even do it in a dive like this,” he muttered as he slipped half in shame beneath that portal to light and warmth, dryness and alcohol.

He more than half expects to be thrown out before he had stepped two feet inside- dive though the place clearly was, it was a pretty damned _shiny_ sort of dive. It is so _light_ in fact that he has to shield his eyes and then squint for the glare, which does not for one moment help, he suspects, with the image of feckless hobo he is giving off. He can see his own muddy footprints on the comparatively unsullied floor and is aware that he drips his way over to the bar – hell, he’s almost disappointed in them for _not_ throwing him out.

This has to be the lightest, brightest place that has ever borne his presence for more than five minutes; he almost wants to marvel at its tacky sparkle but has long since learnt to keep his expressions at bay. Instead he sits down heavily at the bar, dumping his bag provocatively onto the floor and leaning palms down on the counter. He stops and frowns at the shot of glittering green absinthe in front of his nose, picks it up and squints at it suspiciously, savouring the bitter aroma but not wanting to be accused of stealing he pushes it back across the bar –

“Don’t know who’s that is,” he mutters.                                

A dark hand, golden rings on the fingers pushes it back –

“It’s yours sir.”

Loki frowns up at the barman’s placid face, too aware, too accustomed to his own trickery to ever fall for somebody else’s.

“This a hustle?”

“No sir, just your drink.”

Loki squints at the man, trying to work him out; he can’t and that un-nerves him. He squints at the absinthe instead; that he _can_ figure out. He glares back up at the barman challengingly and takes a lighter from his pocket. The barman hands him another silently. Loki ignores it and continues to try to use his own, but it’s as drenched as everything else and after stubbornly trying for several minutes sighs and takes Heimdall’s with half a sigh. The sugar lights with a beautiful flare and melts like fractured particles of snow into the glass. Loki removes the spoon and downs the shot. He hisses as he bangs the shot glass back down onto the bar. The _burn_ man, the fucking burn is the best thing he’s felt all day and it fucking _hurts_ it’s so good, with that feeling like he just swallowed the lining of his own throat but it’s worth it as the pain and the burn seeps out and fills him to fingertips and toes. Loki has barely finished gasping from it when he sees the second shot already set down – and he could have sworn the man never moved or turned around.

“What is this, the fucking _Overlook_?” Loki mutters.

Heimdall just raises a single eyebrow and very nearly smiles- it’s the closest he’s come to it in longer than it would be safe to say. Loki shakes his head a little’

“Anyone ever tell you you’re one creepy motherfucker?”

“Never on first acquaintance sir,” Heimdall replies, nonplussed.

“Huh”. Loki takes the second shot slower, savouring the bitter taste of aniseed and wormwood – the proper barely legal stuff if he’s not very much mistaken – that taste of bitter herb that he loves mostly because it’s _so_ disgusting and for the tearing burn that pricks the eyes like nothing else in this world could ever do to him. Like drinking liquid wildfire. He rummages in his pocket for that last crumpled bill and finds himself fingering a small pellet of mush he wouldn’t even deign to _try_ and use. _Fuck,_ he thinks, emphatically, _I wonder if I can get another in before getting thrown out on my ass._ Just another place in a whole long string of places to get thrown out of, and he hasn’t even cause a scene yet – though something in the strange but dreamily familiar name suggests to him that he should.

“It’s on the house,” Heimdall says, as though he can read Loki’s thoughts.

“Okay man, what’s the deal?” Heimdall looks back, innocent and impassive, pushing another drink across the bar – “I mean, I show up in here, looking like some beat up street trash that got left out in the rain – don’t correct me – leak filth all over your shiny- ass club, form a small lake at the foot of your bar, drink your _fucking good_ absinthe for which I can’t even pay and – you knew that already didn’t you, you spooky son-of-a-bitch? – and then you not only don’t throw me out but you pass me a _fucking_ red wine – last fucking century merlot – and what kind of insane _freak_ mixes that with absinthe anyway?”

“You do, sir.”

“You’re damn right I do. So what the hell do you want, man?”

Heimdall wants, it appears, to offer Loki a job, and when the initial incredulity fades Loki surprises himself to realise that he wants to take it. He doesn’t like it, the fact that he feels at home here, does not like the fact that he had no intention to stay, any more than he intends to stay anywhere. But he knows that he will-even though, as he argues weakly to Heimdall, he has nowhere to stay. Heimdall directs him to the beat up trailer in the back parking lot which anyone else would mistake for the refuse area. Yet it is the very shittiness of the trailer that pacifies Loki to the idea of staying. He is somehow reassured by the prospect of setting up home in a pile of junk – at any rate until Heimdall leaves him with the keys and he takes a look inside.

It’s not that the inside of the trailer is stunning, or that it’s somehow bigger than the outside, but that it exudes a dimly lit sense of quiet class utterly at odds with its grim surrounds and rusting fenders. The lights are dim and golden, and the almost double bed takes up the majority of the whole place. The kitchen and bathroom – both of which are over glorious titles, are box rooms attached to that bed. But that’s fine. In fact, it’s suspiciously perfect. It’s more than he has ever had and more than he is quite comfortable with. Even the weird leaf green walls are exactly what Loki would have chosen if this had been a dream house and not a temporary stop off on the road from nowhere to nowhere.

It is, in fact, as though the place has been waiting for him. Loki throws his bag down in the available square meter of kitchen and storms back into the club –

“Okay- what the fuck man? What the actual fuck?” he rages at Heimdall.

“You are referring to the fact that you have no drawer space and need somewhere for outfits if you are to perform in this club?” drawls Heimdall. Loki squints –

“What? No – no for fucks sake I have a backpack, dude, and that’s all I have –”

“If you pardon me I believe you will find ample storage space in the dressing room behind the stage –”

“W- what?” Loki peers forward as though hearing incorrectly, his eyes narrow, almost close in the grip of some cosmic inevitability and he sags into himself resignedly, at the same time standing straighter than he has done for years, his eyes glitter and he half smirks as sudden as a summer storm – “I have a dressing room?”

“It has your name on it.”

Loki suspects now that this is already actually, impossibly true, though the realisation of actual impossibility is deeply reassuring, comforting away the fears that he is just being used or conned.

“So tell me –” he half grins, half sneers, convinced now that this is something much stranger than a set-up, understanding the oddity and enjoying it -

“Exactly how long have you been expecting me?”

This time Heimdall _does_ smile, in all the years no-one has ever come close enough to guessing _The Lokasenna’s_ secrets to ask such a question. But he knew it would be Loki and that is why he has been ready for him all this time.

“A long time, lie-smith” he nods – “A long time.”

__x__

That night, curled into the middle of the impossibly comfortable bed, Loki lay awake and listened as _The Lokasenna_ whispered to him from across the parking lot, stories about the people who have passed through here and the places and times they brought with them, stories and songs, their rhythms and rhymes trickling down the concrete to where he lay. They whispered of connection in an age of isolation, of hopes and loves he had always fled from, feared and wanted so deeply he would insist he did not care for any of them. He knew it would take such connection to ever draw him away from this place, the first in which he ever felt that faint prickle of belonging.

_Listen Loki,_ she whispers – _listen to me, don’t you know where you are? This is where you were always meant to be. I have waited for you and shall wait again, I shall bring you what you want and when you leave I shall wait for you again. I am that thing called home, I am the true place you dreamed about and the lie you always wanted. I am the palace of dreams._

That night, for the first time since he can remember, Loki slept sweetly and did not dream.

__x__

**I’m sorry still no Thorki, promise that it starts next chapter but gah this stupid club is taking on so much personality it’s like a stupid OC and demands to be written. This is turning weirder than I meant it but I kinda like it. And yes, I’m doing intentional tense changes so everything inside is present and outside is past tense…. If you hate that I am really sorry but most of it from now on will be inside so almost all present tense.**

**Also to clarify – for myself as well –** **Heimdall is a god, everybody else isn’t. But the way I see it Heimdall’s vision stretches everywhere even to other dimensions and he knows that there are realities in which these people are also gods. Indeed he knows of realities in which _you_ are too….think about _that_ for a moment!**

**Oh yeah and I half quoted “Rent” and vaguely referenced “American Gods” and “The Shining”, just to acknowledge where I stole stuff!**


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

**Just to quickly note before I start that Thor is struggling with a somewhat homophobic upbringing, he is _not_ homophobic himself, he may come across that way at first but I can promise you he’ll get over it!**

**3.**

And say it is all true, that everything you see here is a lie. Well then, your saying would be a lie too, would it not? It is impossible for _every_ word you utter to be false, Loki knows this well enough from a lifetime of practising. You set out to slander, to run a person down with lies and fables upon their character and you find in truth that none of it was ever a lie to begin with. The further you see the further you find that everyone is infallible, gods and men all alike until it no longer matters who is the man and who is the god and what the words even mean anyway – phew! Your definitions have to change with each new word you learn.

That’s _The Lokasenna._ That’s one of the stories it tells.

And if it is all a lie, Loki tells himself, then his assumption is wrong this time, though he has never made a wrong assumption in his life about anyone other than himself. So yes, it does seem likely that the guy at the bar has been giving him the eye. The large, disconcertingly attractive biker guy with the hair. The guy with the storm clouds simmering in his eyes. He clearly thinks Loki has not noticed, but that’s because he’s stupid or dim at the very least – there is _nothing_ Loki does not notice. Strange, in a way, because this guy looks more than usually straight, although Loki has long since noticed that such technicalities tend to wind up quivering on the kerbside where he is considered. It is wearying, but it seems he is the exception to _everybody’s_ rule.

Sitting backstage, Loki watches through the curtain reflectively. This is not his realm, backstage. Some love it, he knows, but for him only the call of the platform and the bright glaring lights, the hatred and the admiration of the eyes all turned to him. _Yes, yes,_ he has come to crave it – _give me that spotlight again and again, give me your hate and your love, throw them at me like rotten fruits, I’ll feast upon your hearts._ Still he watches the hustle and bustle, the people painted beautiful against this backdrop of gold and swirling rainbow lights that catch and sparkle tenderly in the tacky crystal candelabra; like living inside a pantomime palace.

Loki loves the pantomime, the play in which he watches everyone out there perform. The _oh yes he is_ and the _oh no he isn’t_ of the daily catcall and cheer of existence. The mess and the farce that people make of their lives. The pretence that there are good people and bad people and that the two are easily distinguished. He loves it, it cracks him up. He would rather be on _this_ stage any day, where all _know_ for sure that this is a performance, rather than convincing oneself that they are not performing – like all the rest of them.

Although maybe not _him._ Maybe not the newcomer who watches him with worried, hungry eyes. Maybe there is something about this one, despite the rough attire and the evident fear of his own sexuality. Something in those eyes that conjure clouds and the smile that lights the harshly pensive face into golden beauty. Maybe there is something – or maybe Loki just fancies him a little, he’s not quite sure. Either way tonight he means to press it.

For his part, Thor never even meant to come back. Since he was last here two nights ago he has spent so much time telling himself not to come back – has _needed_ to spend so much time telling himself not to come back – that he knew it was never really going to happen. That first night he had seen the Lounge Singer’s smirking face smiling up at him out of a masturbation fantasy and he had fought hard to just cut it off there and then but instead had come hard and arching with Loki’s name on the tip of his mind. Then instead of blocking it off in disgust he had rolled that name around and around in his mind like a silly schoolgirl with a crush, turning it over until it seemed like two notes of the most perfect melody he had ever heard.

He wished he was as stupid as people often took him for, that he could just deny to himself firmly what was going on here. But he was not that stupid, and now he was questioning what had seemed to him a desperately important self-held assumption about himself. He was trying to remember why it _was_ so important at the same time as fearing that some of his father’s ugly casual homophobia had somehow rubbed off onto him. But he had never had a problem with anyone else. Apparently any sense of wrongness only applied to himself, in this case. It was simply and utterly confusing and a part of his brain had decided to blame Loki for it. He knew this wasn’t fair, but it was doing him so much good, in fact, without knowing anything about him rather than what he had witnessed, he was coming to _hate_ Loki. He was enjoying the hate, basking in it – and alternately knowing that the strength of this attempt at some other emotion neither absolved nor overwrote the first.

And so, after sitting for an hour, tapping his fingers irritably on the counter of the biker bar on the other side of town Thor had roared internally with frustration, slammed his fast – drained drink down onto the counter, thrown his coat on as angrily as was possible and got on his bike to follow the siren song of _The Lokasenna._ He had pulled up sharp outside of the club, glared at Mjolnir – he suspected it was sentimental to name his bike but what the hell – for lack of anything else to glare at and stomped into the club affecting the worst appearance of macho nonchalance that Heimdall had never seen. And there is almost no limit to the amount of _that_ shit that Heimdall has seen.

It is, in fact a night of firsts, for when Heimdall slides Thor’s pint silently across the bar, Thor  frowns and says –

“No man, just the usual.”

He had known Thor’s usual, of course he had, but instinct had told him that tonight was different. His instinct has never been wrong before- _never._ He changes the drink feeling an almost alien sensation of discombobulation. Nevertheless, he is not discomposed enough to give Thor anything other than that totally placid face that gives away no suggestion that he had known Thor would be back or that he could have told him where this was going and perhaps saved him a lot of confusion. But he does not do that, not for anyone.

When he hears the sounds of the stage setting up Thor feels his insides dance, he swallows two triples in quick succession but it does nothing except make the drink feel like it is swirling around in there with the rest of the mess of his guts. He forces himself to hold onto the next drink tightly and not just knock it back, but then so tightly he starts to fear he will just crush the poor glass in his heavy hand.

_What the fuck is going on with me?_ he thinks fiercely, wishing to god that he really does not know. Then Loki steps onto the stage and his world goes still, all of the edges blurring away down to the point where all he can see is the dazzle of golden light and the sparkle and catch of green sequin. This time Loki simply saunters up to the mike and, curling his fingers around it, _smiles._ The longest most, insinuating smile Thor has ever seen and he could have sworn Loki was looking right at him when he did it. He says nothing this time, simply launches into his song, every word he sings sounding like the most obvious come – on, as though, Thor thinks, he is mocking him personally. Which is bad, but not nearly as bad as, progressing through his set, Loki begins more and more obviously flirting with those tables nearest the stage. He does not even realise he is growling until a grip, firmer than he would have ever expected it to be, takes the glass out of his hand and places it beside him on the counter. Only then does he realise he had not drunk a drop since the set began.

“You’ll hurt yourself if that breaks, sir,” Heimdall murmurs quietly, so as not to take away too much of Thor’s clearly divested attention. He finds himself clenching his fist instead, nails starting to dig into his palm for the realisation that Loki’s flirting is making him jealous. Utterly, unreasonably, almost murderously jealous. Also his cock is hard as fuck. The combination makes him feel like he is going to crack and break. He does not want Loki touching them, smiling at them, he could _kill_ them for reacting, for even looking, which is, he knows completely ridiculous and leads to only one possible conclusion and it is one he does not like at all.

Yet when, in what Thor suspects is the final number, Loki makes his way through and beyond those front tables – when it becomes apparent that he is weaving a seductive path _towards Thor,_ he feels like his insides are going to plummet straight out of him and takes hold of his drink again – a little more gently – for support. It is too sudden – anything would have been too sudden – that Loki is close enough to touch, so close that he can smell the faintly leafy, deeply intoxicating scent of him. So suddenly he is _there_ almost in his face and smiling out the last two words of another cheesy cover song, so very unfortunately –

“Rape me.”

Thor could swear to god his heart stops beating, his breath chokes in his throat and he feels perilously close to doing something really _really_ embarrassing. But Loki does not even give him a chance –

“Hi” he whispers softly as the music dies down, a smile of pure mischief and just a little bit of warmth playing across his lips. His eyes glitter, as in a quick, bird-like motion he kisses Thor on the edge of the lips, takes the drink out of his suddenly slack hand and disappears with it as quickly as he appeared. Thor is left staring, close to catatonically, still as a stone on his bar stool, aware of nothing else until Heimdall pushes a new drink into a hand that refuses to work. He closes his mouth, though even that takes an effort, afraid of the noise he would make if he dared to try and speak.

__x__

**It begins! Semi – random note for anyone interested, _The Lokasenna_ is the name of one of the poems in the Norse Edda, I apologise if people already knew this, it’s one of the best known - but somehow still quite a good name for a club. The title means “Loki’s flyting” – an old English word meaning to strive or dispute. In this story Loki systematically heaps shit on every other of the Norse gods at a public gathering and at a very inappropriate time. He essentially exposes them all as corruptible and then ends up being the only one to take the rack for this. I mention it only because in my head this is relevant to this story and certainly the character of the club as an entity is informed by this story so reference where reference is due! **

**Yes, Thor named his bike Mjolnir. I’m sorry. :-)**

**And yes, there is a Cheese cover of Nirvana’s “Rape Me”. Even sorrier.**


	4. Chapter 4

As Thor sits, in his somewhat shell- shocked state at the bar he comes to several conclusions about Loki. Loki is not to be trusted. Loki is a slithering serpent in sequins. Loki is dangerous, with the potential to destroy his entire life. Loki is an annoying small boy with the emotional maturity of a five year old. Loki stole his god-damned drink.

Loki is beautiful. Utterly, painfully, and cataclysmically beautiful.

Thor feels about ready to actually cry when Loki reappears a few metres along at the bar. He has changed in the interim and is now dressed like a distinctly more normal person. Not that there was any other way he could have gone from his sequinned attire. Now that he is out of the sequins he seems to move like a different person, hunched, almost spider – like over the bar, dark nailed fingers lightly stroking the rim of the glass in his hand. Thor had half been hoping that some of the glamour of attraction was in the spotlight and the sequins but it is apparently not the case. If anything Loki is even more lovely like this; in casual, almost but not _quite_ scruffy black with his hair tied back, the natural recline of his lips falling into a perpetual half – smirk and those eyes – Thor can see better now – almost dazzlingly green.

Damn.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Loki smirks down at the counter-top, knowing Thor is watching him, hell he can feel those eyes scratching fire across his skin. Feels good; he almost quivers with it. He knows how much Thor does not want and desperately wants him to look his way and make this easier for him and so he does not for as long as he can possibly hold out. He knows this game, he has been playing it for years and he always wins. And yet, when he finally does look up, the nonchalant shyness in his eyes is only half pretence; he surprises himself almost into faint fear at his own sudden nervousness.

Luckily it is all that he needs to do. Thor pulls himself together, ignoring the parts of him that are yelling because _Loki looked at him!_ Thor shifts three bar stools down – wondering when this entire section of the bar became so suddenly empty. He glances at Heimdall, who continues to polish glasses and barely even gives him half a look back.

“So – can I have my drink back?” Thor grunts, not even able to look at Loki while he speaks, looking up just in time to see the warm grin Loki turns on him –

“Sure,” he passes the glass he has been toying with back across the bar – and it is Thor’s drink. “Can’t stand the stuff anyway.”

Thor takes his glass in some relief and drains it fast –

“So, what’s your poison then?”

“Heh –” Loki smirks – “Poison.” As if on cue Heimdall appears, handing him a glass with a faint nod, Loki raises it back to him in an off -hand thank you. Heimdall passes Thor another as he moves away. Thor frowns –

“How _does_ he do that?”

“Who? Heimdall? Best not to ask.”

“Why? Is it as weird as I imagine?”

“No, he just won’t tell you.” Loki pauses – “But yes, it probably is that weird. Weirder. Cheers.” He raises a glass to Thor’s and chinks gently. Thor watches Loki sip gently, the quick flick of his tongue and the beads of moisture shimmer on his lips – and has to drink half his glass fast to keep from choking.

“So, you here for the act?”

“Fuck no,” Thor replies quickly, before realising quite how rude that sounded; he fights that feeling where he might be blushing and tries to backtrack – “That is to say – I – well –” but Loki has started to laugh, so he stops. It occurs to him he could listen to that laugh all day, Loki seems to sway with it, his eyes glittering –

“Well you’re honest anyway, that’s –” he searches for the right word as it occurs to him he does not know quite what he thinks of honesty – “That’s cute.”

Thor glares at him –

“You’re – quite insufferable. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Loki chuckles, aware that his eyes are darting back and forth, Thor’s too, like birds in a summer sky and that when they make contact it is to briefly brush wings before shying off again –

“More times than I’ve heard my own name, my friend,” he nods. “Loki,” he adds after a pause, extending a hand.

“Thor,” Thor reaches in for a manly handshake, and appals himself by taking Loki’s hand very gently and kissing it as though he was a prince and Loki a maiden and this a different story altogether. _Dear gods, what am I doing?_ His brain screams even while it dwells on the softness of Loki’s skin and the firm press of his fingers, how little that pale hand feels in his. When he dares to look up Loki is smiling at him, a quizzical, dreamy look in his eyes.

“Well –” he says softly – “And they say chivalry is dead.”

Thor gives Loki his hand back and looks away awkwardly.

“So let me guess,” Loki goes on quickly, to break the strangeness that he finds he fiercely does not want setting up between them. “You stopped off here on the route to nowhere hoping for a quiet drink and a gentle drunkenness only to have your plan foiled by a diabolical singer ruining all of your favourite tunes. Am I close?”

_Too damn close,_ Thor thinks –

“They’re not exactly favourites –” he half way agrees – “Well not all of them –”

“Thank god,” grins Loki. “Cause if “Rape Me” is your favourite I’ll be shimmying gently down this bar and saying goodbye to you – that’s not _anyone’s_ favourite is it?”

“God, I hope not.” Thor smiles, a soft warm feeling inside him informing him that it has been a long time since he spoke to anyone able to make him smile so easily – “I _do_ hate the lounge act though, no offence.” Loki shrugs –

“None taken. _Thor –_ that Scandinavian or something?” Thor blinks; Loki can change subject quicker than a snake in the grass. On the whole, he rather likes it.

“ _Something_ I guess” Thor echoes Loki’s shrug – “I dunno, I was born in Kansas.” Loki raises half an eyebrow; he started life as a ward of the state of Kansas, but he does not say this, just grunts a short response –

“I’m hearing – never going back?”

“You’re hearing right.”

“So what brings you to a dive like this?”

“I dunno. I’d have moved on by now but –” _shit,_ Thor thinks, _ran myself into that corner._ He wonders why he _hasn’t_ moved on yet, there’s nothing for him in this crumbling town, he only stayed because – _yeah, great, real smooth, can’t say that now can I? – but I wanted to see you again? Great Thor, just great._

“- I dunno,” he finishes lamely.

“It’s cool” Loki nods. “I didn’t mean to stay either.” It costs him an effort to say this, he has not given anything – not even this much – to anyone, since he can remember. “Y’know this town’s not so bad” he adds – “not if you get the right place at the right time.”

“Yeah? Maybe you should show me.”

Loki grins slowly and widely –

“Are you asking me out?” he drawls with the gentlest teasing edge.

“Look if you don’t want to –” Thor jumps on the defensive fast,he _was_ of course, but he wasn’t about to acknowledge it to himself, let alone let Loki say it out loud. Loki cuts Thor off before he has a chance to suggest forgetting the whole thing.

“No, no, no, come on – I have an idea,” he jumps off his stool and slaps Thor gently on the arm. Thor frowns; Loki’s mind clearly moves faster than his, it is hard to keep up –

“What? Now? I didn’t mean –”

“Yes, yes, now – before you up and leave town for good- you have a bike, right?”

Loki does not give Thor a chance to reply, and Thor finds himself following him docilely out the front door.

“Will this thing take two of us?”

Thor grunts an affirmative that Loki takes as assent that it’s alright for him to jump up behind Thor on Mjolnir and shout directions in his hair over the rumble of the motor. Thor puts all his effort into driving so as not to be too distracted by the warmth of Loki’s breath against his ear and the close press of him against his back. He almost groans when Loki’s arms wrap around his waist, almost not meeting in the middle, Loki is so small next to him. A strange, amber feeling floods his chest, like Loki has slotted himself into a place that could have been made for him. As though the hole inside of him as been filled that quickly and simply – he does not trust the feeling, he has lived with that hole for almost as long as he can remember. And then there is the perfect press of Loki’s body, Thor can feel him, hard and lean and _delicious_ against him. He shifts uncomfortably in the seat, his brain drowning under a tumble of images and ideas, envisioning scenarios that would have been unthinkable to him only days before. A part of him wants to rip Loki away, throw him from him violently, hurt him if need be for doing this to him. He can see himself hurling Loki away at the same time as never letting go, keeping him at arms length, even as he slams him into the wall – but he fears it would not go as planned and kicks Mjolnir into gear, sliding out into the street.

Loki, for his part, smiles into Thor’s back, the press of warm leather on his face and the solid mass of Thor to anchor him. He is not sure he has ever felt safer. And that scares him senseless. He has never sought to feel safe, never expected it, never wanted or needed anyone and told himself he was happy to stay that way forever. But as he holds on to Thor, he feels it as more than just a need to stay on, but as something he wishes to cling to. If he had not forced himself into this position with his own thoughtless spontaneity he would have run before he had to keep holding on. He has never felt anchored before, never caught a clue as to where his place in the world could be and he finds himself liking it too much to like it.  But he has always been a creature of sensation and can block this all out with the throb of the motor beneath him, the wind in his hair and the warm, leather and whiskey smell of this man he hardly knows but feels strangely like he has known forever.

When they grind to a halt Loki jumps down before the dust has yet settled and walks a little way down the hill to look out at the scene below them. Thor follows slowly, frowning –

“Did we come to the right place?”

Loki looks at the spreading ruins and nods silently. Once there were factories here, spreading out and into the desert, chugging smoke into the sky like storm clouds, thick and black. It is as though the ghosts of the fumes hang over this place still, though the chimneys have crumbled and the windows caved in like broken teeth, late light catching on the last pieces of jagged glass. It’s a boneyard with crystal shards amongst the bones, the skeletons of the factories like dinosaurs in the dust. Broken chimneys curl their withered fingers to swear at the sky that has brought them to this pass.

Loki nods again when he feels Thor behind him, his heart beating frantically, wondering what he has done in daring to share this silent kingdom with anyone.

“Just wait,” he murmurs – “You’ll see”. He cannot quite believe how perfect the timing has been today, to have arrived here just as the sun is setting and on one of these golden summer nights with the light just flickering off the edges of the ruins like the first crackle of fire sputtering across a branch. The sun drops fast now and as it does the sky sinks into fire, streaks of gold and deepest pink, orange and red bleeding down the sky and into cracks in the walls. Shadows flare across the sand to where they stand and Loki sits down as they fall around him. As the shadows play across him he seems to Thor like some otherworldly being and though he wants to sit beside him he finds himself still standing out of respect.

When the fingers of sunset reach the chimney stacks they trickle through the broken windows and _this_ is what Loki has been waiting for, the moment they splay great beams of fiery rose through those gaps and out across the rooftops, streaking the sky and the ground between themselves and the sun with all the colours of sunset, catching in the shattered windows and throwing out brief diamond flares before they begin to fall.

Loki smiles up at Thor as though he made this, and as far as Thor is concerned he may as well have done, for he would never have seen it without.

“I come up here quite a bit,” he nods – “Always thought of it as mine”. Thor looks at him steadily, watching the colours dance across that pale face that seems to reflect them all. He feels something tighten mercilessly around his heart and is ashamed to feel he almost wants to cry.

“Thank you Loki –” he says, looking down at the sand – “I did not know –”

“How beautiful a place could be?”

“If you know where to look.”

Loki shakes his head –

“It’s not about knowing where to look. It’s about knowing _how_ to look.”

He looks up at Thor and smiles, glad to know that he gets it and isn’t mocking him, though Thor has not been looking at anything other than Loki for a good few minutes now. This time for the first time their eyes lock and both find themselves ridiculously, terribly close to paralyzed with fear. Loki’s fingers push in the sand until they find Thor’s, interlacing as gently as if their hands were fallen leaves brushing in the dust. He shifts closer and Thor’s hand curls around Loki’s neck as though it belongs there, his shaking, stroking fingers taking in the softness of his skin and hair and the curve of his ear. Loki closes his eyes, trying to ignore the terror, unable to hear anything past the frantic beating of his own heart, tilting his head back, a warm pool of desire forming deep in him at the feel of Thor’s breath against his face, the warmth of his fingers and the dying sun on the back of his neck –

Then Thor snatches his hand back out of Loki’s and stands up abruptly, breaking it –

“I don’t –” he says in a harsh, strangled voice – “I’m not – I mean- I -”

Loki sits for a split second, bereft, as though Thor’s sudden removal of contact has ripped at his insides. It has. He lets out a rough tattered breath and stands up quickly –

“Sure” he says quickly, way too quickly - “Fine. Whatever. C’mon.”

He swallows, hating Thor, but hating himself more, berating himself for his own stupidity – _not for you Loki, never for you, the kiss in the sunset, the tiny dreams of mortals, not for you, fool, never for you._

They do not attempt to speak again and the whole way back Thor piles abuse on himself from the one hand and bewilderment on the other; cursing himself for being an asshole and cursing himself for being weak.

When they pull up outside _The Lokasenna_ Loki slides off and stands for a moment in the awkward position of not knowing what to do. He shuffles and looks down, hands in his pockets –

“You coming back in?”

“No” Thor does not look at him either – “No I – I better –” his hands are sweating on the handlebars and Loki’s awkwardness and attempt to not appear hurt or indeed affected at all are cutting into him like knives. He opens his mouth to say something to make it better, but knowing he has hurt Loki and how intensely awful that feels are just making it a hundred times worse.

“Sure” Loki says again. “Fine. Whatever. See ya then.”

Thor mumbles a shamefaced “See ya,” and kicks off down the highway.

Loki convinces himself that the stinging in his eyes is from the dust kicked up in the motorbike’s wake, and slouches back into the club, shoulders hunched, face blank.

__x__

**I’m so sorry! I didn’t really want this chapter to end here but it’s gone on so long already! I PROMISE I will start to make it better in the next one. There was a temptation to go cliché and have them just kiss in the sunset, but this ain’t that story. Sorry. It was gonna be, but it’s doing it’s own thing now. I _think_ I predict a happy ending though if that helps!**


	5. Chapter 5

 

**Some slight graphic content in this chapter at the very beginning. :-)**

Tears in his eyes, cock in his hand, Thor comes sobbing with Loki’s name on his lips. No mild suggestion of his face in the midst of a fantasy this time. He had no sooner slammed the motel room door than taken his cock out, fucking himself furiously to the thought of those perfect twisted lips wrapped around him, running his fingers through Loki’s hair, soft as feathers. Spewing out a litany of curses as he imagines that perfect tongue and beautiful mouth sucking him into oblivion. He curls into his bed, shaking with misery, his treacherous cock still twitching, almost ready to go again as his fingers remember the softness of Loki’s skin and the sinewy perfection of his body pressed up against his back. Thinking of throwing him down onto his bed and discovering how gorgeous he would be naked, of taking that perfect body for all he was worth, fucking into Loki over and over again until he was satisfied.

And then? He cannot imagine satisfaction ever coming – cannot really imagine ever having had enough of such sweet perfection. He wonders what the hell is going on. This is unlike any lust he has ever known and it _is_ lust, denying it to himself is apparently doing him little good. But what scares him beyond all measure is the prospect that it could be something even more.

And anyway, Loki will hardly even want to speak to him again now. After they came so close, after hearing Loki’s heart beating so fast and the wanting and fear in his eyes that must have matched his own and then turning away like some homophobic asshole, forcing himself not to go through with it for what seems now the pettiest reason imaginable.

He should leave. He should get out of town with first light and never look back. He determines to do exactly that when he remembers how the shadows moved across that face, the red of the sunlight glinting in his eyes, how close his feelings came to those of worship for that little dark figure sitting on the sand. He has never wanted anything half so much in his life, is he going to leave that behind just because he’s _scared?_ Thor growls and clenches his fist, he is no coward. He determines at that moment to stay, to make it right, and it is a much harder thing to decide than to leave. He does not know where it will go, has no clue as to what could happen or if he will get through this with his heart intact, but he knows he has to go back to _The Lokasenna;_ if just one more time; if only to say sorry.

__x__

Thor parks Mjolnir and takes a deep breath, heading straight on into the club with the appearance of a great deal more courage than he really feels. He marches up to the bar and downs the drink Heimdall hands him in one.

“Heimdall!” he says, too loudly – “I need to –”

“He’s in his dressing room,” Heimdall anticipates him, handing him a second drink promptly – “You’ll need it” he adds. Thor takes the drink, his composure immediately and easily wrecked by Heimdall’s half raised eyebrow, and he turns to go straight there.

“Mr Odinson?” Heimdall calls, though Thor is fairly sure he hasn’t used his second name or told it to anyone since he was a kid. He turns around –

“It’s round the stage to the left. I don’t have to tell you to tread carefully.”

The fact that Heimdall has said this much however prepares Thor for the fact that Loki is going to be inordinately difficult to handle. He gulps, but does not falter.

Loki’s dressing room is a shoebox attached to the back of the stage. He only finds the door at all because the letters of Loki’s name glimmer in a weak shimmering green out of the darkness of the backstage. Thor takes a deep breath and knocks tentatively.

“Fuck off!” he hears, resonating from the other side – “I’m on in ten!”

He tries the handle anyway; the door opens and he sets a tentative foot inside.

“Door’s open mother-fucker,” Loki mutters, swinging round in his chair, irritably, with one eyebrow raised – “Oh it’s you.” He sags in an affectation that he could not care less, which is harder for him than Thor will ever guess. “What do you want, I’m due on stage.”

“You have ten minutes.”

“So make it good.” Loki leans back in his chair, eyebrow raised, arms folded, lips half twisted in a sneer he does not quite mean. But Thor is determined and not to be deterred; after all he was expecting nothing less than for Loki to be at least prickly with him.

“I wanted to say I was sorry…and to – to try and make it up to you – if you’ll let me.”

Loki raises an eyebrow but resolutely says nothing, staring at Thor disarmingly, lips pressed together and a fixed expression of _pray continue_ designed and succeeding to make Thor feel ridiculously awkward.

“I do not – I mean I – would you –” Thor babbles, wanting to kick himself for his inanity. This is more than strange to him, this not knowing what to say. Convincing himself that he does not even know what he wants, full stop, and Loki is looking at him in a way that makes him feel painfully defenceless.

“No,” Loki says, though he swivels away in his chair, so that his back is to Thor and his voice is too high.

“No?” Thor echoes, unsure of what question Loki thinks he would ask that he is answering.

“No I won’t let you,” Loki clarifies – “I won’t be part of a scheme to rid yourself of your burgeoning confusion. I won’t be the exception to your rule whilst you dabble in the wonderful world of boys and then return to the reassuring realm of your own manly straightness. Been there. Done that. Never turns out well.”

Thor tries to ignore the sickening rise of illogical jealously at the thought of Loki with anyone else, and winces to hear his issues so casually dismissed, and with such lancing accuracy, summarised, but neither will he give up that easily.

“Listen – Loki – I don’t know what’s happening to me – I can’t deny this is strange and it – it –”

“Doesn’t fit in with your narrow minded view of yourself?” Loki sneers, archly, not sure if he is being mean, blunt, trying to push Thor away or testing him.

“Yes if you must,” Thor sighs, but presses on stoically. “But I know that I can’t just let it drop. I can’t just – leave. I tried. And I don’t know if it’s you or if it’s this place but I do know that it doesn’t feel like a – a _dabble._ There’s something here. Something I can’t just ignore.”

“So I’m just a mystery to be solved?” Loki half smiles, swivelling back round – “Or some kind of prize to be won?”

Thor sees Loki’s eyes glitter and hears the hint in his voice that he does not altogether hate this idea –

“Would you like to be?”

“Are you _flirting_ with me?”

Thor looks down, knowing that just a few days ago he couldn’t have admitted even as much as he does now –

“Perhaps,” he lets the corners of his lips pull in the start of a smile.

“Then yes,” Loki says. “Perhaps I would.” Thor meets his eyes and smiles almost shyly –

“So –” he begins, questioningly.

“So what were you going to suggest?”

“Well I _was_ going to suggest I could take you to dinner, but –” Thor teases Loki with the end of the sentence hanging, for after all two can play at that game and Loki has baited him enough.

“Oh shut up.” Loki drawls – “Yes, damn you, you’ve found my weakness.”

“Weakness?”

“Thor seriously, I’ve been living off bar snacks and the random assortments that mystically appear in my shoe-box of a fridge for almost a year. You really think I’m going to pass up on the offer of actual food?”

“Well – good. Tonight then?”

Loki tips his hat in faintly mocking assent –

“Did you actually have anywhere in mind?”

“There’s somewhere near the motel….” Thor trails off, wishing he had actually checked this part out in advance. Loki scoffs in faint amusement –

“What, the crappy diner near Idun’s? Probably not what you had in mind –”

“Well, alright, where do you suggest?” Thor wonders how Loki can irritate him so much at the exact same time as dazzling him so that he can look at nothing else. He blinks fast, suddenly aware of how gormless his gaze must look.

At that point an alarm goes off on the ledge beneath the mirror, Loki hits it and stands up, gathering his cane.

“I’m on it. I’ll see you at the bar later, until then –” he brushes against Thor as he passes him in the doorway, grinning as he presses a fleeting kiss to his cheek and his fingers ghost over the bulge in his pants – “down boy,” he whispers, all but dancing out the door.

__x__

“So let me get this straight,” Thor frowns. “You object to a crummy burger joint and then make me take you somewhere that serves – um – burgers?”

“Well yes,” Loki grins, eyes flashing. “But these are both expensive and delicious, also there’s candlelight and they sometimes clean the tables – anyway what do you want, it’s better than fucking Volstagg’s Bar and Grill!”

“Plus, you knew I was paying.”

“Again yes,” Loki grins, crookedly – “well, you _were_ a total douche the other day.”

“I’m sorry about that –”

“Oh shut up” Loki groans affably – “I’m starting to cringe every time you say that. In my pants,” he adds for emphasis. Thor smiles, wondering what it is that Loki does that warms him up inside so much that he so frequently catches himself smiling not only with his lips but glowing from the heart. Nobody has made him smile like that, not for years. He watches Loki in the faint orange light and feels himself in terrible danger of something he does not yet want to name. Loki is almost indescribable to his eyes, with the light flickering over his pale skin and his eyes both sunken and bright, with faint traces of eyeliner that never quite washes away and a collection of crooked smiles expressing everything from amusement to anger. He watches, too closely, over his pint glass, catching everything; the way he pulls awkwardly at the shirt that is so much smarter than he is clearly accustomed to, the way he eats with no affectation and honest hunger. He would have expected himself to be the one to eat so much so fast and he gently says so.

“Meh” Loki says – “You try living on bar snacks for so long. Honestly I was getting to the point I couldn’t have stomached one more pretzel.”

“Does Heimdall not pay you in real money?

Loki shrugs.

“It’s not like I need it. To tell you the truth –” Thor catches the shifty look in Loki’s eye that tells him this is something he is not used to – “I never expected to stay so long in the same place.”

“I know that one.”

Loki nods, then seems to retreat in on himself as though he has given away more than he would have liked. They find themselves talking about the club, and then about Thor instead, and Thor is no less surprised by how much he finds himself able to say to Loki, about his time between places, about a life that feels like it has always been spent between places, about what an asshole his dad was, and how he would have left years earlier if had not been for his mother. Even about the brother he lost when he was twelve –

“Cause it had always been just me y’know? And I thought finally, there’s someone I can share this life with, for what it is. I had this whole future planned out in my head where there were two of us and – well it was dumb I guess.”

Loki shrugs –

“I wouldn’t know. Doesn’t sound it.”

“He never even had a name. And then he was gone, after we’d just had long enough to get used to the idea - I always figured I’d be next – I can’t believe I’m telling you this shit –” Thor breaks off a little bewildered at himself – “I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear this crap,” he shakes his head. Loki leans across the table suddenly and rests a hand on his, warm fire flickering in the green eyes;

“The past is overrated,” he smiles – “We done here?”

Thor nods, pays the bill, and when they leave he keeps Loki’s hand in his, heart beating loudly the whole time, electrically aware of the soft little hand in his, blood rushing in his ears with nerves at just twisting their fingers together. This time when they drive back to the club Loki finds himself almost folding himself into Thor, resting his head against the leather clad shoulder with a feeling of security so strong as to be almost alarming and when he slips off the back of the bike as they pull up Thor jumps off with him, taking both Loki’s hands in his –

“Loki –” he murmurs, trying and failing to look anywhere other than at Loki’s lips. Loki smiles and shakes his head resignedly at Thor’s hopelessness.

“God Thor –” he groans – “Shut up.” He leans in and presses his lips to Thor’s, so much more afraid than he can let on that Thor will just break away again. But this time he seems to go soft with relief, and twisting his hand into Loki’s hair pulls him close and responds fiercely, kissing him back brutally, passion running ribbons of fire through his insides, his hands running desperately across all of Loki that he can reach, sliding up under his jacket and crushing him close. He marvels at how small Loki feels against him, his body at the same time so hard and lean and _perfect_ like he could touch him forever. He groans in his throat, wanting to take him for everything he has, to crash and burn through his lust in that sublime little body. At the same time he knows this is too important to rush, he suspects this desire will never burn out, that it will just consume him and he shakes with the balance of wanting to not fuck up and simply _wanting_ Loki so much.

After a delicious age Loki finally breaks away, and for a moment they both hold it like that, simply breathing.

“Will you –” Thor begins – “Loki I think I – can I -” He hears Loki’s neck audibly crack a little as he rolls his head back –

“God Thor, you’re _hopeless,”_ he groans, gently brushing Thor’s nose with the tip of his. _God,_ he thinks, _never thought I’d be brushing fucking noses with anyone._

“But I –”

“Thor shut up,” Loki insists, in a desperate bid both to cover a rising terror and to not start kissing him again, knowing that this time he will not be able to stop. He breaks away, squeezing Thor’s fingers as he does – “I’ll see you tomorrow – idiot.” He smiles, warmer than the overheads and slouches slowly into the club in the glow of those lights, looking over his shoulder one more time to cast his smile straight into Thor’s frantic heart.

Thor stands in the wash of light for several moments watching until Loki is completely swallowed up by the mouth of the club, watching the wash of emerald fluorescent light him up and die away again, the neon green flashing magical in his hair. He stands with his hands in his pockets in the faint outer throb of crimson lights, glowing and on fire with it. He smiles in a deep content he can barely comprehend, one hand on Mjolnir as the dull stretching light casts a red cloak behind him across the street, flickering and crimson, lightening the shadows.

__x__

 

**Okay I know that was a really corny chapter ending in so many ways but I just couldn’t resist…well, any of it!**

**The next chapter is FINALLY gonna get graphic! Also now that it’s entered my head I’m thinking we may have to actually visit Volstagg’s Bar and Grill in a later chapter! :-)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Graphic content and EPIC feels ahead. I ain’t kidding.**

**“** Actually I have a lot of theories about this place,” Loki nods, setting down his glass and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Thor watches the careless smear of dull red on that pale hand with the maddening urge to lick it. Thankfully he hates wine.

“I mean, you’d say I was utterly mad –”

“Try me.”

“Okay.” Loki leans across the table; they have moved away from the bar in the last few days so as to have a corner to themselves, yet whenever a drink looks like emptying one of the three waitresses is there like magic to replace it.

“Thanks V,” Loki nods to the dark haired girl – “So there’s them, for starters,”  he gestures to the girl’s back as she moves away – “Them and Heimdall, every night, no other staff and even I couldn’t tell you where they go when we’re closed. See, what I think more and more is this place doesn’t really exist – or it exists in every possible dimension at the same time – like some kind of gateway with Heimdall as gatekeeper.”

“God,” Thor puts his drink down and looks at it accusingly – “I don’t know what’s wrong with me that that actually doesn’t sound too weird. Hey, what about that red door back stage?”

“Creepy, isn’t it?” Loki grins – “Always makes me think of that song, y’know? _I see a red door and I want to paint it black?”_ he sings the line – “I forget what it’s called. But yeah, I try it now and then, just to see. Never opens. Wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t lead anywhere – or if it _could_ lead _anywhere._ Some days I hate to think of it.” He swirls the wine in his glass musingly – “Some days I wanna kick it down.”

“ _You_ would, wouldn’t you?” Thor smiles, brimming affection – “You would take the world apart to see how it worked if you could.”

“Yes and I wouldn’t be able to put it all back again and you’d find me sitting in the broken pieces until Ragnarok – you know those stories right?”

Thor nods;

“I was brought up on them. S’why I named the bike Mjolnir.”

“Cheerful,” Loki smirks – “All that death and apocalyptic bull crap. Good start in life that.”

“Shut up, Loki.”

Loki raises his glass and drinks deeply. In the past few days they have come to end up here every night. They drink. They talk. They resolutely do not discuss their relationship status, how long Thor plans to stay or any hint of where this could lead. Instead Thor arrives here each night, he watches, he gets increasingly irrationally jealous of Loki’s audience, they drink and talk and later – increasingly later each night – Loki sees Thor off with a kiss.

Thor cannot quite believe the extent to which he cannot get used to kissing Loki. Neither can he ever seem to get enough. He never knew kissing could be like this; so exciting. So delicious, so _connected_. He dies a little more every time, floating away and coming back each time more alive than before. It should not be possible; such intensity, electricity and delight – not just from simple kissing, though each night his shaking hands grow hungrier, his cock more aching and painfully hard by the time he gets back to the motel. Each night he breaks upon the suffering bed, thrusting furiously into his own hand, the memory of Loki’s fingers still burning madness into his skin, breathing deeply of the smell of him imprinted into his clothes and Loki’s name screaming around his brain and spilling hopelessly from his lips.

It never once occurs to him that Loki returns to his trailer each night to follow the exact same pattern.

“You know,” Loki says, in one of his drastic swerves off topic and onto another – “You probably should stop actively growling at the rest of my audience every time I’m on the stage.”

“I do _not_ actively growl –”

“Oh, you _do!_ They _can_ look at me you know, that’s kind of the point.”

Thor mumbles something into his glass and Loki has to lean across the table to hear –

“What?”

“I said I don’t like it,” Thor mutters, aware that he does not really have a right to the feelings he’s been feeling about this – “I don’t like them looking at you like that, you’re –” he desperately wants/ does not want to say _mine_ but is not entirely sure he has a right to that either yet so does not – “I just don’t like it,” he finishes lamely.

“Yes, but did you really have to say that to the poor man next to you and then look like you were about to punch his lights out? Not that _I_ mind but I’ve _seen_ Heimdall throw people out that door and it’s not pretty –”

“I just don’t like people looking at you like they can – I don’t know – have a piece or something.”

Loki shrugs.

“And your intentions are – what, exactly? No see –” he puts up his hands in mock surrender – “I’m not trying to be difficult – this time – I’m really not; but we’ve been dancing round this a while now and well – as my old man would put it if I had one – what _are_ your intentions exactly? Cause I see that look in your eye like you’re thinking of driving off into one of the great sunsets that we have around here, with me on the back of your bike like this is someone else’s story –”

“Does it have to be?” Thor interrupts gently, though to his mind it is the most daring thing he has said yet.

“Well, where would you drive me to precisely? You’re staying at that crappy motel off junction nineteen, right?”

“Oh, and you have somewhere that’s so much better?”

“Oh I was so hoping you’d ask!” Loki jumps up and hauls Thor after him by the hand, dragging him through the club and out the back door into the parking lot. “Ta- da!” he waves a hand at the trailer with a mock pride that is almost actual pride – “You – er – want to come in?”

He makes it sound like the most casual thing in the world, but Thor looks at him steadily, knowing better from the way he looks down, actually scuffing the toe of his boot into the asphalt. He looks at him for a not – so – long moment which is all it takes for him to know how little he has ever wanted anything or anyone else next to this.

“Yeah,” he says, and when Loki looks up to meet his steady look the green eyes are sparkling – “yeah I do.”

__x__

Thor has to duck to get in the trailer door, and still bangs his head on the roof.

“It’s kind of a shoe box,” Loki shouts over the music.

“I think you left a radio on,” Thor shouts back.

“It’s not me it’s -” Loki squints over the sound of the not so safe-for-work version of “Closer,” blasting into the trailer. “Heimdall!” he yells – “Cut it out!” Abruptly the music stops.

“Totally not appropriate” Loki mutters. “Swear I don’t know how this shit works. Same as in the club –” he trails off into a somewhat awkward silence in which he frowns up at Thor who stares without being able to help it at the bed that dominates most of the trailer.

“So….yeah….” Loki tries to not look at Thor, which is impossible in the tiny corridor – “You’re here and I’m – I’m awake this time…oh fuck…that’s awful, pretend I didn’t say that –”

“Loki –” Thor shakes his head, at the sudden drastic role reversal in which he finds himself being the one who knows what to do – “Shut up.” He takes hold of Loki by the shoulders and can feel his bones in his hands, almost fragile, but just knowing how little there is of him next to himself does anything but inspire him to be gentle. His fingers knead into Loki’s shoulders as he pulls him close, feeling Loki sigh with a  sort of relief, going placid in his hands as he kisses him, swimming in the sensation of the taste of him and the flutter of the caged bird heart.

“Loki,” he groans, all other words flown, all such questions as _are you sure, say you won’t regret this_ left behind, the door closed on them many moments ago. Loki smiles, licks his lips involuntarily, and slips through the door that leads awkwardly into the bedroom and straight onto the bed. He has often wondered how that bed was ever made to fit in there in the first place, though this is stunningly irrelevant at this moment. His back still to Thor, he drags his shirt over his head, and Thor stares transfixed as he moves into the room awkwardly after him as though in slow motion, watching the muscles ripple in Loki’s back in the action and the perfect picture he makes as he turns, just to angle a look at Thor over his shoulder. Thor slides along behind him, breathless and overwhelmed with want; Loki is chiselled marble, a god in human form, pale as snow, hair black as ebony with those lips when he smiles that could tear the world to pieces. He can barely breathe, to feel that flesh beneath his hands, stroking the hair back from his neck to kiss it from behind, trailing hot breathy kisses in a chain around his neck, until Loki rolls his head back, groaning softly, holding himself poised with a hand on Thor’s leg, another beneath his shirt to feel the muscles writhe like snakes in those powerful arms. He swivels a little to work at the buttons of Thor’s shirts, fingers working quickly until at the last he looks up and smiles and Thor feels his heart drop down and his cock harden painfully. He takes Loki’s hands by the wrists to pull him to him and, powerful though he is, feels fluttery and tremulous at the feel of Loki’s skin against his. His chest heaves and his hands roam that perfect back, Loki’s hands sliding up his arms to discard his shirt behind him.

“So tell me –” Loki smiles through twisted lips – “How long have you wanted this?”

There is no longer any room for denial, even to himself,

“Always,” he replies instantly – “Since I first set eyes on you.” Loki grins –

“Knew it,” he whispers, kissing Thor again before he can reply. Thor’s head swirls at the sweetness of kissing Loki like this and when Loki palms his suffering cock through his pants he feels ready to explode. But Loki is kinder than he expected and does not keep him waiting, twisting onto his hands and knees and unbuckling with one hand. Thor pushes him gently back round onto his back before he is quite ready –

“No” he breathes – “So beautiful – want to see you.”

He drags Loki the last little way out of his clothing and looks down at him spread beneath him as he works his own belt buckle with fingers that have forgotten how to undress.

“So beautiful Thor can’t make whole sentence?” Loki grins, to cover the fleeting apprehension in his eyes, not having expected this level of closeness, of actual intimacy. He even shakes a little, but Thor strokes and soothes him, easing the fear away and Thor, as he appears naked before Loki, is so golden and shining, a god too, if one of a different colour, lust wins out easily in the battle with nervousness.

Thor shakes his head in a silent _shut up Loki,_ crouching in to kiss him from lips to jaw, trailing kisses down his chest as the hands take and the eyes drink in. It should feel strange, it should at least feel a little bit different, after this is the first man he has ever slept with, but somehow that’s no longer even a point. It is as though he has never kissed anyone else, as though he has been touching Loki like this for as long as he can remember. It is the first sense of coming home he has ever really felt and Loki feels it too, though he tries not to think of it too much.

Thor strokes Loki’s demanding cock in fascination and delight, pressing his own need up against him until Loki reaches for the lube on the cramped bedside shelf. He doesn’t even remember putting that there but hands it to Thor anyway with a smile and a soft moan at those unskilled but perfect rough fingers on his cock.

Thor is not sure he remembers ever taking this much care with anyone, as he oils his fingers and slides the first gently into Loki. Strange when at the same time his need, his lust, is more urgent than it has ever been, yet he kisses Loki as Loki arches beneath him, gasping into his mouth, as though it is still of the most vital importance. Before he feels like he has even halfway prepared Loki enough, Loki is whispering _please_ at the press of Thor’s cock against his leg and he is could not be more ready to acquiesce, removing his fingers and pushing his cock perfectly into their place with a deep vibrating growl of pleasure. Loki is so tight, so exquisite, it feels incredible to be finally inside him after almost weeks of imagining, fantasising, wanting.

Aware of their relative sizes he does try to be gentle, at least at first; though he aches and sweats with the effort not just to slam into Loki and fuck him savagely, but Loki digs his fingers into his shoulders and hisses at him not to stop and he looks at those eyes half closed in pain and bliss and loses all control, thrusting in until he is buried in Loki completely, withdrawing to thrust into him over and over again, Loki’s cock in his hand and his eyes never leaving that gorgeously contorted face. Surging forward he kisses Loki as he pounds into him, wanting to consume him utterly. Loki swallows down his cries to kiss back, tears jumping in his eyes, that he could not tell were from pleasure or terror, his cock jumping in Thor’s hand as the sensations overwhelm him and he is holding out with all his might not to just come within moments.

They both hold it out for as long as possible, not wanting this ecstasy to end, but it is still not long before the ministrations of Thor’s hands and the thrusting of that immense cock destroy Loki entirely and he arches, screaming, barely touching the bed as he comes, flying, hands clinging around Thor’s neck and it is too much, it is all Thor needs to follow him, slamming deeply for a final time into that small, but maddeningly strong form, bellowing as he spills into Loki fit to burst apart the skies.

They both fall, scrambling for breath, for grip on one another’s dampened skin, for words that are not just curses at the sheer blinding intensity of feeling. Thor wipes the streaking tears from Loki’s eyes and kisses him slowly, savouring it like the most delicious dish. Loki keeps his eyes open this time, for the first time, wild with fear and expectation and there is no room in Thor’s heart for anything else or knowledge in his body of any other sensation but _Loki._ He kisses him again and feels his drained cock trying to stir back for more.

As his heartbeat stills Thor feels that heart fill, not just with the feeling that has gradually been taking over, but with knowledge of the feeling. His hands shake against the skin he never wants to stop touching. It is pain to close his eyes and lose sight of Loki for just one second. Yes, he knows what this is and never expected to feel it too strongly. It is not just lust, he wonders that he ever suspected it was and suddenly longs for the fear he felt simply at that. This is a hundred times worse, a hundred times more terrifying. To think there was any part of him that thought it might be satisfied from this, that he could move on after - he can hear his heart start to pound like it will explode, the blood rush, the ringing in the ears. He can see Loki looking up at him, concerned, feel a gentle touch on the arm he realises is starting to shake uncontrollably. His lips part on the verge of speech and he knows he is a breath away from saying something he has never said before, something unspeakably true –

Too unspeakable. He backs away feeling feverish and almost out of his own body from it and the first word is all he manages –

“I –” he begins – then finds himself reaching for his clothes fast, his insides hearing and churning in a sucking pool of fear – “I have to go.”

Loki barely has time to register his confusion, it crosses his face but the _what?_ has barely started to stammer from his tongue before Thor is gone, hurtling out the door, hand to his head like he is trying to hold it all in. Loki hears the heavy thud of boots fading across the parking lot and finally the cough of a motor from the other side of the silent club – hears it all as though in a dream, barely understanding. Only when the silence is absolute does it sink into his heart and the fears that had threatened to crush that nervous fluttering expectancy and hope fall upon them like shadows with teeth.

Loki rolls over onto his side and no matter how tight and how small he curls in on himself, no amount of holding himself in will stop the tears he never remembers shedding for anyone, from falling hot and screaming onto the pillow, drowning his heart in their acid.

__x__

**So I gave this to Zedrobber to beta and had to shield myself from so much wrath….I am sorry. I am SO sorry, I’m hiding up in my house now expecting a flaming torched mob to come get me for this, but okay I _swear_ I will fix this. Needless to say there’s some angst a’coming but end of next chapter is all gets towards better, this time for good. If it’s any consolation I made myself cry a little. **

**And I know it’s hard but please don’t hate Thor too much for this, I tried to prepare y’all for this when he was a douche before, but I get this is worse. Just try and think about the times you’ve loved someone so much it scared the shit out of you and I think you’ll dig why he did this. I promise he’s beating himself up for this so bad already. HE WILL MAKE IT BETTER. Cross my heart and promise to sing a public rendition of Loki’s “Closer” if he doesn’t! Please hang in there! Thank you.**

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**It’s maybe helpful to do this in advance but the songs used in this chapter are, in that order Alice Cooper’s “Might as well be on Mars” and My Chemical Romance’s “I’m not okay (I promise)”. This will be relevant.**

The knock at the motel room door barely rouses Thor from his lethargy. Indeed it takes several, increasingly more insistent, knocks before he even hears it. He moves slowly, like one resurfacing from quicksand. Indeed he has been dragged under, can almost feel it clogging his nose and mouth, all his pores until he is close to suffocating from it.

Six days. Six days he has been here. Six days since he travelled further than the liquor store and the vending machine at the corner of the motel’s front lot. Six days since he got on his bike. Since days since he saw _The Lokasenna._ Six days since he walked out on Loki like the world’s biggest jerk. He has not stopped beating himself up for a single second.

Over and over again he has asked himself what the hell his problem is. He has asked it to all four walls and the bottom of every bottle and found no answer other than grease stains, stickiness and tears. The shame spiral, unlike each bottle, has no bottom, no end apparently. He has been torn like a rag between leaving town and going back to the club, getting down on his knees before Loki and telling him everything, everything he should have just said the night he walked out. But having done as he did, there is now so much more to say. He had doubted Loki would forgive him before, certainly he was now more than ninety percent sure he had blown it altogether. So torn he had been that he had, of course, like the waste of space he so clearly was, done neither. Instead he had sat in his room, downing Jack Daniels until the point of passing out in the attempt to erase Loki’s face from his mind.

It doesn’t help. Instead in his permanent drunken stupor that face is all he sees, the increasing hope in those eyes that this was going to be everything he had not dared imagine it could be, that just this once his dreams were not going to be thrown out like yesterday’s left-overs. Over and over he sees that little face fall as Loki struggles to realise what Thor, in his cosmic idiocy, is doing. He sees Loki’s face every second. Those eyes that fascinated him from first glance – he has always been captivated by green eyes, ever since his brother, who had those eyes too, was taken away from him. He wonders briefly what the fuck _that_ could be about, but throws the thought out like everything else.

Every second, without remorse, his own brain plaguing him with this merciless loop; Loki singing, Loki smiling, Loki’s eyes flashing with a dozen different fires in the course of just one sentence. Loki’s breath on his skin, the feel of that sweet body beneath his hands, the way they fit together so perfectly in the too – short time they had. He thinks back to a movie line that had always bugged him and thinks, for sure this time that it is not true, it is not possible to love a lifetime’s worth in the tiniest space of time. No time in the world could have been enough, and when he thinks that he has blown it, that this is all he will ever have, he comes as close as he ever has to wondering what could make him want to carry on.

Loki, always Loki, his voice, his touch, the way his eyes danced like hummingbirds, never settling, the high pitched lilt to his voice when he was pretending not to care, the way he tasted wine and absinthe with his tongue before drinking, not really knowing that he did it. The laugh he could always draw out of Thor’s chest and the lust he could drag up from deeper still. The way he never knew when to stop talking and the way he arched in tense ecstasy beneath Thor’s hands, the scratch of those slender fingers and their ragged nails, so vicious across his back he can still feel it.

He sees like a brand in his brain what he has not seen – Loki crying, Loki miserable and angry because of him. He thinks of it, and could physically beat himself up for being the cause of it, a passionate, fiery need to hurt anyone who dared hurt his Loki extending to himself until he wonders how he deserves to live for what he has done.

But maybe he is wrong. Maybe it was what Loki expected and he does not even care. Perhaps he has already moved on and found another.

His heart does not hear this as true and the whole morbid cycle starts again.

Loki. He is hopelessly, wretchedly, violently in love with Loki.

Why does this so feel like the end of the world? Why can he not just tell Loki this? Why was he such a pathetic jerk? He had opened his mouth to say it, he knows this now, but instead he had muttered what was barely even an apology and left. What kind of a monster was he? Why did he imagine he even deserved Loki to give him a chance? He did not, and so he had not returned.

He groans all the way from the bed to the door, and it is all he can do to stop shuffling and groaning when he opens it. To his immense surprise Heimdall is standing there, arms folded with a look of merciless lack of amusement. Heimdall looks him up and down, very nearly wrinkling his nose in disgust and when he pushes Thor aside to march into his room Thor staggers beneath that and the cloud of alcohol, stumbling into the stash of empties that litter his room.

“You sir are a mess.” Heimdall states roundly.

“Well…..fuck….” Thor groans; days without speaking to anyone, living off JD and vending machine snacks have rendered him incapable of intelligent speech.

“You’re a stinking mess,” Heimdall re-iterates – “And if I did not know better I’d call you a pestilent waste of space. Hell, I wouldn’t even bother my time with you if your mistakes were not scaring my customers.”

“Whaaa-” Thor peers at him from his semi recumbent posture against the wall. Heimdall slaps him unceremoniously in the face, grabs a whiskey glass, drains it himself and marches into the barely functioning bathroom. He returns a few seconds later with a glass of water that he thrusts at Thor, at the same time hauling him around by the shirt and sitting him heavily on the side of his bed. Thor stares at the water like it has done him some personal affront.

“Drink it,” Heimdall insists with bored severity. Thor pouts at him like a brattish child but cannot say no to Heimdall and drinks it meekly. When Heimdall has fetched him a second and seen him half way through it, he tries again.

“You’re sitting here, wondering whether to come back or leave town and I’m here to tell you to come the hell back and _then_ you can leave, taking my lounge singer with you. I’m not going to begin telling you what he’s been like these past few days –”

“Heeeey –” Thor drawls, squinting – “I am _not_ responsible for –”

Heimdall looks at him until he both stops talking and starts to shrink into the fetid bed sheets. Heimdall continues to stare at him until Thor starts to wonder if he has actually soiled himself, he feels like such a pile of shit beneath that uncompromising gaze. Once the silence has been long and awkward enough for emphasis Heimdall hands Thor another water – Thor swears to god he never saw him even pour this one – and continues –

“Yeah, you tell me that again like you believe it for a second, maybe _I’ll_ believe it for a second.”

Thor wriggles uncomfortably, hating the increasing awareness that he looks like a bad dog with worms. Heimdall looks at him until he appears satisfied and finally nods –

“You get back to my club by tomorrow midnight Cinderella, or _I_ won’t be responsible for _my_ actions.”

Thor stares at him and blinks, not wanting to hurt any case he may have – and he doesn’t, he knows he doesn’t. Somehow Heimdall seems to take this as assent because he nods briskly, makes a faint Hmmph-ing sound and turns to leave, pausing with his hand on the doorknob to turn and add –

“Yes, and Odinson?”

“Yeah?” groans Thor “Take some kinda shower and for gods sake shave cause you look and smell like shit.”

Thor rubs a hand a hand over his stubble and cannot even argue this. As Heimdall slams the door behind him he stares at the threadbare floor and wonders what the hell Loki has done to make him actually leave his precious club. His stomach churns with guilt, snacks and alcohol and he starts slowly to set about the business of looking if not being ready to face the world again.

Scarier still, to face Loki.

__x__

Loki always suspected it was a lie that you could cry yourself to sleep, but only after that night does he know it for a fact. He cries until everything hurts with it, turning the pillow over when it becomes too wet to deal with, drenching both sides and then crying again, tiredly, this time because there is nowhere dry left to rest his head. The head aches, nose runs, eyes sting, but worst of all the wolf still gnaws at his gut, tearing him apart from the inside out.

He hates himself for this. Hates his patheticness in letting himself feel like this when there should be no cause for it. It is not like he has not been walked out on like this more times than he could count.

_But it’s not been “Like this” has it?”_ the hateful inner voice whispers to him through that long, sleepless night – _It’s never been like this. You never cared before. I don’t care now. You care, you fool, you care, damn you._ All the quick connections that weren’t connections at all, to catch lifts from nowhere to nowhere, to get dinner, to get cash. A long line of the nameless and faceless leaving before they’d barely re-fastened their pants. It had never hurt, never even _touched_ him. He had barely even _been_ there it had all mattered so little, just swept on down the highway when the wind changed like another fallen leaf.

Then _The Lokasenna,_ and not having to bother about that crap anymore. Being able to flirt and smile without having to see it through; and though he knows nobody wold have guessed it, there has been nobody else come to this trailer in all that time. It was good, to be able to avoid it all. Good to be alone in the crowd. Never once through all of it, the movement and the peace had he felt wretched and hollow like this because he had never felt as warm and steadily filling with the golden as he had before this hit.

He does not know how long he lies there, but the next day’s sun has come and gone before he even falls asleep. By the time he emerges from the pit, his throat and eyes are dry like all the moisture has left his body and he is shaking from lack of sustenance, makes himself sick swallowing water too fast, and throws himself into the shower in a lurching heap of loathing. It is only when he realises he is still washing dried semen off himself that he starts to cry again, sitting down in the shower with his back to the wall, water cascading over his face in hot punishment for whatever it is he has to atone for.

This time it only takes a few minutes of sobbing before he curls his insides into a fist; _fuck this,_ he thinks, and gets to his feet, shakily but with a new strength growing, taking all of the barbs he has been sticking himself with and flicking them outwards – picturing this as a clear actuality, he does not hurt from those knives anymore but brandishes them at this sorry shit – stained world.

“Fuck this shit,” he says out loud; he turns off the shower, calmly wraps a towel around himself and slams his fist so hard into the wall that the dent is visible on the outer side of the trailer. He watches the blood start to well up from his stinging knuckles and a smile spreads across his face as he licks it. Salty. Good. He drags on some clothes and almost methodically trashes every inch of the trailer before heading out across the parking lot and over to the club.

The club is still closed when he enters – the stage door is always open. But there is a light on at the bar and a row of some dozen shot glasses glowing green with absinthe in the slightly surreal glare. He sits down and calmly obliterates glass after glass, dropping each one neatly to the floor beside him in a shower of glittering fragments. He is through them all in less than ten minutes and by the last glass is a note –

_That’s your lot. I’m cutting you off until further notice. I covered your shifts. Try not to cut yourself on the clean up. H._

“Fucking motherfucker,” Loki mutters, noting the broom and dustpan propped against the bar as he ducks underneath – “Cut me off, my ass,” he mutters and is still muttering to himself as he shifts through the shadows back to his dressing room with the bar’s full bottle of absinthe, crunching through the broken glass and trailing it glittering across the club like malicious rainbows.

__x__

Welcome to your Friday night at _The Lokasenna._ The lights are low, the stage is set, candles flicker gently in their somewhat tacky glass holders and the replacement lounge singer has not shown up. The club is mellow in its gentle amber glow and when the music starts to trickle in like warm rain and starlight it offends no-one, though it is not the perky upbeat twang you would recognise if you had been here before, and it is strange coming out of the darkness with the stage light still down. The music holds its note on a tentative breath before the guitars kick in and in that breath the stage lights filter dimly down, not in their usual click and flare, but in a melancholy spotlight that does little to illuminate anything more than the small dark figure at the microphone, looking down at the floor as though he is truly a million miles away and unaware that anyone is even watching him.

People around the club look at each other frowning, wondering who this guy is that looks like he fell in here off the street, his fingers like bone, hands curled around the mike and his hair bedraggled and almost obscuring his face. They whisper to each other in incredulous disbelief – _is that even the same one who was here before?_ And frown as they try to work it out.

He looks up from the floor slowly, sightlessly, and only those closest the bar would see the barman’s hands tighten into fists and the faintest scowl crease the implacable forehead, because he looks _terrible_ – not just the darkness around the eyes that make them all but disappear but the way he _smiles_ when he looks blankly out across the room, as though he cannot see the light through all the shadow of the stage. The smile sends shivers through every soul in that room, like it has touched them all with its chilliness and left a little bitterness there that will never be dislodged. It is thankfully fleeting, for when he starts to sing it is to the floor once again though in a voice that reverberates throughout the room, knocking off the glasses and insinuating itself into all the corners. It is not that it is _cold_ but that it sends each word down a resonating beam of hopeless late night tragedy, the mediocre suffering of every lonely street corner and when the chorus kicks in the haunting beauty of that voice is lost in a near shout that cracks the tune and threatens to invade the ears. The fear that strikes the listener is that when the singer says he’s _on the roof and staring at the stars_ he is in imminent danger of simply jumping. After that every word is sneered out in barely tuneful bitterness until half way through the last verse he twists in so close to the microphone it looks as though the tiny form could break and the words run out mid-sentence, though the pale lips still move, as though he has been inhabiting the song and the rest just hurts too much to get out. He brings it back to cry out a final shattered chorus until the music begins to fade out and a sluice of fast and angry guitars cut in before it has even quite ended, all the stage lights finally coming up.

He seems to vibrate to the crashing chords, snarls into the microphone –

“This is for all of you who _haven’t_ noticed,”

And hurls screaming into the second song, a jarring juxtaposition with the first, a furious seething mess of rage and fury, shrieking syllables of angry sound that wrench up from a torn place in the chest until between verses he is simply screaming the lyrics _I’m not okay, I’m not okay_ over and over until the music will not allow it. As the shrieking progresses, a louder more shattering sound than you would imagine possible, Heimdall’s glare gets steadily more and more pronounced until on the final screeched _I’M NOT O-FUCKING KAY!_ the music strangles, chokes and dies in a flurry of static crackle and with it every light in the house. The speechless clientele sit in the dark and what would have been silence were it not for the steady stream of abuse being screeched from the stage –

“The fuck you do that for, you fucking motherfucker? Fuck you, you fucking asshole and fuck this shithole, you fucking fuck piece of crap, all of you fuck off –”

A tirade that might have gone on indefinitely were it not cut off by the crash of glass and a heavy thudding sound. When the lights still do not come back on, everyone slowly leaves in awkward, stunned silence, and before it is even midnight the club is empty, dark and for the first time since anyone can remember, barely visible from outside.

__x__

When a light comes back on over the bar it finds Loki propped up against it, holding a cold flannel to his rapidly swelling face, Heimdall with his arms strictly folded the other side of the bar and a half dozen pint glasses of water stood on the counter between them.

“The fuuuuuck –” Loki moans into the flannel – “You fucking _punched_ me man –”

Heimdall says nothing, just pushes one of the pint glasses firmly across the table; Loki thrashes it away with the back of his hand, shattering it to a floor that has seen enough broken glass this evening.

“ _Fuck_ water” he mutters – “Take your fucking water and shove it up your –”

“Alright,” says Heimdall very steadily – “I did not comment when you did not show up for work for almost a week. I did not comment when you trashed your whole trailer so bad that shit will _never_ fix. I did not comment when you stole an entire bottle of my best absinthe. I almost did not comment when you _murdered_ Alice Cooper – but I will not –” Heimdall’s voice rises to a shout that Loki – indeed – that very few people – have ever heard before, taking with it a resonating timbre of which he suspects the ordinary human voice is not capable – “I WILL NOT TOLERATE SUCH ABUSE OF MY CLIENTELE’S EARS AND PERSONS IN MY CLUB, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR? You wanna act like a piece of trash rock star, you do it on your own time, do you hear? Nobody shouts shit at me in my own damned club and I haven’t even started on the amount of glass you broke in here tonight –”

“So - what?” Loki spits back, shaming himself by actually drinking some of the damned water at the same time – “You gonna chuck me out? You wanna get on the end of _that_ list you be my fucking guest.”

“No,” says Heimdall, flatly – “It’s a fine line you’re walking Lie-smith but I’m not about to push you off it. Besides I’m getting the point that you’re not okay.”

Loki smirks at that and suddenly, surprising only himself, follows it up by bursting into tears –

“You _knew –”_ he spits, accusing and wretched all at once – “You _fucking knew_ man. Why didn’t you tell me? You could have stopped me – you could have –”

“Oh, I could have? You even believe your own words Loki? You think anybody stops you but you? Yes I knew. You ever think perhaps I didn’t tell you because I also know what happens _next?”_

Loki frowns for a moment trying to compute this –

“You’re saying this can – can _work out?_ That it can still go – I don’t know – _well?”_

“I never tell anybody anything about that and I think you know it.”

“But you are, aren’t you?”

Heimdall glares at Loki and silently gathers up the steadily emptying pint glasses. For a long moment he says nothing and then –

“Yeah.” He says “I am. Now get out of my club.”

“But – you said –”

“Get out of my club and don’t come back until you’ve _both_ of you sorted it out.”

Loki grins crookedly, feeling sick and ragged, but with a light dawning on the edges of this near week of colourless dark. As he reaches the front door Heimdall calls over –

“Loki?”

Loki turns his head in a silent question.

“When you get back, you’re cleaning the club and you owe me for the absinthe.”

Loki half smiles and slips, hunched, out the door.

__x__

The sun coming up over the factory is almost more beautiful than the sun going down upon those chimneys. Loki watches the steady rise, feeling it sing to him, soothe his troubled self with that sweet light. He lets it wash over him and even though he has managed to reach no conclusions through a whole night of sitting out here, he feels better. Not all better by a long way, but better than before. Better enough to regret at least some of his ridiculous behaviour. As he breathes in deeply the warm morning air, he hears a rumbling across the sand and a shimmering, flurry of dust skitters down to where he sits. He turns to watch the dust settle, and shakes inside as reveals a silhouette, hulking in the sunrise.

It’s Thor.

__x__

 

**As an encore to Loki’s act, here, have the verse of “I’m not okay” that made me think this needed to happen:**

_“What will it take to show you that it's not the life it seems?_ __  
I've told you time and time again you sing the words but don't know what it means  
To be a joke and look, another line without a hook  
I held you close as we both shook for the last time take a good hard look!

_I'm not okay_ __  
I'm not okay  
I'm not okay  
You wear me out”

**I also thought for literally two days what Alice Cooper song I wanted him to do, I wrote a whole thing in my head for “Poison” (too obvious) then “Brutal Planet” (too religious). In the end it had be “Might as well be on Mars” because it’s tragic and I love it and it clashes _so well_ with “I’m not okay”.**

**Just for crack as well I was really tempted to have Heimdall’s rant at Loki run like this:**

**“I did not comment when you did not show up for work for almost a week. I did not comment when you trashed your whole trailer so bad that shit will _never_ fix. I did not comment when you stole an entire bottle of my best absinthe. I almost did not comment when you _murdered_ Alice Cooper – but I WILL NOT TOLERATE MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IN THIS MOTHER- FUCKING CLUB, UNDERSTAND!”**

**Had to share that. Sorry, long end note for a long section!**

**Tune in soon for a beautiful reconciliation. I promise. Minimal punching. :-)**

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

**Quick trigger warning: While Loki does not have an eating disorder as such, it does come up in this that at this point he hasn’t eaten for 6 days and I kinda feel this happens a lot just because he forgets. He has some serious self neglect going on. While this may sound like I’m going ott on warnings I am aware that this can be upsetting for some people or worse sound like a cool idea. It’s not cool, please do not try this at home. I don’t mean to sound like a fussy mother hen, I just care about all my readers so much!**

**__x__**

 

“Go away, Thor,” Loki says coolly, standing up, fists clenching, the sand gusting around him like a cloak in the mild breeze, facing Thor off like a gunslinger prepared to fight this battle to a fatal end. His eyes narrow and his look might have killed a lesser man, but Thor is determined on one outcome and only one.

“No” he says, taking a step towards Loki. Loki hisses breath.

“ _Go. Away.”_ He repeats through gritted teeth, nails digging into his palms.

“I will not.”   Thor circles him warily, reading the hundred danger signs in Loki’s eyes and ignoring them all. “Loki, listen to me –”

“ _I will not!”_ Loki shrieks – “You can’t make it up to me this time, Thor! There is not a _single_ word you could say to me that I could possibly wish to hear.” He laughs spitefully. “I don’t think dinner’s going to cut it this time.”

Steady as Thor’s heart is it shudders to hear that laugh and the way Loki says his name as though he truly hates him. Indeed he does truly hate him; Thor just hopes that is not _all._

“Loki, please- we can talk about this.”

Loki laughs, all teeth and hoarse, burning screeching. It occurs to Thor for the first time that Loki is actually more than a little insane – occurs to, but does not surprise him. Certainly it changes nothing.

“ _Talk_ about this?” he sneers – “ _Talk about it?_ Why? We’ve had this talk already, and I’m sure it went very differently in your head than it did in mine. We have _nothing_ to talk about. I don’t want to hear your apologies, your pathetic whining excuses – and I don’t want you _here_ – I told you, thisplace is mine. Now get out. Leave. You’re so damn good at it. Get back on that piece of shit you rode in on and get out of my town. There’s no room here for the both of us – _get out.”_

“Not without taking you with me.”

Loki gives an incredulous, incensed half laugh –

“Over my dead body”.

He hurls himself at Thor, but Thor catches him by the wrists before he has even the chance to strike, holding him tight enough to hurt whilst Loki kicks and snarls, twisting like an animal in a trap. Teeth bared, he spits at Thor, Thor refuses to even notice.

“I will not fight you, Loki.”

“Let go of me!”

“Not until you listen to me –”

“I don’t _want_ to listen to you! I don’t –”

“For god’s sake, are you twelve?”

“I’m _nothing_ to you, hear me – _nothing._ I don’t want to hear you ease your conscience telling me why you left, and I sure as hell don’t want to hear why you came back, I hate you Thor, hear me? I hate you!”  

“I came back because I love you!” Thor yells, having to roar it over the sound of Loki’s hissing and cursing and kicking. Loki puts a final kick in that actually manages to get Thor in the shin and then, as though the words have only just hit him, stares at him astounded, as though this possibility had never – and it had not – even occurred to him, and he stops his struggling abruptly.

“Wh – what?” he squints up at Thor in complete lack of comprehension.

“I love you, Loki,” Thor repeats, unafraid to say it now, indeed shaking visibly with the relief and terror of having finally got it out – “I love you so much I can’t stand it. I should have known it from the start. I knew it when I last – last saw you and that was why – I had to leave. Loki, I’ve never felt like this before, not ever and it – well it scares the shit out of me. Now tell you hate me, really hate me and nothing else and I’ll go, I’ll leave town, I’ll leave the planet if you want me to – but if it’s not true, I – I’ve been a jerk. The most incredible jerk that ever lived, and I’m prepared to spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you’ll let me.”

Loki watches Thor closely as he says all this in thunderstruck, silent bewilderment. A part of him hisses _yes, just do it, tell him you hate him and nothing else – you do hate him – don’t listen to the rest – just let it go –_ butafter a moment of struggle he kicks that part in its hateful face. For a long moment he says nothing, not even daring to meet Thor’s eye, Thor watching him all the while as his life depends on the answer. With Loki so still, he lets go of his wrists and the voice kicks in again urging Loki just to run, to get out while he still can. His heart beats frantic and afraid. He curses the voice and his heart for cowards and finally, slowly looks back up.

“You are a jerk,” he nods, affirmative. There is something in his voice that floods Thor’s heart with a relief that almost makes him dizzy. He even nods in agreement.

“And an asshole,” Loki adds, nodding, almost placidly – “An absolute cunting bum, and a spectacular waste of space piece of shit – am I missing anything?”

“Yeah,” Thor sighs – “Probably.”

“Probably,” Loki nods – “But –” he looks down again and Thor can feel, even without touching, that he is trembling like a leaf – “I get why you left – I’m still mad but I get it because –” he looks up at Thor again and his eyes are wide, his face almost paralytic with fear – “Because I’m that scared too.” His searching eyes roam Thor’s face in the hunt for an answer, pleading with Thor to do something to help his shaking.

A smile starts to spread across Thor’s face that is like a new beginning to a life and he reaches out to touch Loki’s arm, gently and so tentatively as though unsure he is allowed to. Loki’s shaking intensifies as Thor’s fingers brush his arm and he puts a hand onto his shoulder just to steady himself at first and then Thor catches his lips and in his kiss Loki stops shaking, reminding himself just to keep breathing as Thor’s kiss seems to awaken him like in a fairy tale, all that true love bullshit he had never once imagined happened in real life. The world spins wonderfully as he kisses back and when they finally have to pull apart for breath it does not quite stop spinning.

“ _Fuck –”_ Thor exhales, eloquently – “ _Loki.”_

“Yes,” Loki agrees, as though this were a question – or an instruction – “Just so long as you don’t leave this time.”

“Never. Never again, I swear.”

This time it is Loki who presses in and Thor can feel him, hard through his jeans, rubbing at his own erection in return –

“What – here?” he starts – “ _Now?”_

Loki merely grins up at him in return, standing on tiptoes to scatter kisses across his jaw and neck.

“Do people ever come past here?”

“Never – if you don’t want them to,” Loki whispers, and Thor shudders to feel the warm breath against his ear, his hands tingling to remember the soft perfect skin, Loki’s perfect shape against him, moulding to him more like one thing becoming fixed than two things joining. He needs that fixing now and lets Loki pull him down onto the warm hard ground beside him.

“Say that thing again,” Loki whispers, quiet as the shifting sand, as his fingers seeming to dance over the buttons of their shirts, leaving them miraculously open in their wake. He does not look at Thor, enough that he is courting the thing that scares him the most.

“Which thing?” Thor murmurs, his hands on Loki’s hips, his chest, stroking the line of his jaw and the back of his neck, anywhere he can reach.

“The scary one,” Loki whispers.

“I – love you?” Thor frowns. Certainly he cannot think of a scarier thing either of them have said yet.

“Mmm – hmm,” Loki mumbles, burrowing his face into the crook of Thor’s neck as his hands in his lap knead at Thor’s cock – “That one. Say it again.”

“I love you,” Thor smiles, leaning in to stroke Loki from head to small of the back, over and over, running fingers up his spine until Loki is all but purring with it, whispering the truth again and again into his ear – “I love you Loki, my Loki, precious Loki,” whispering sweet words and Loki’s name over and over like an incantation, his most fervent prayer, discovering how much he loves the taste of Loki’s name on his tongue. Loki shifts and sighs, his ears adjusting to the strange and curious sound, like trying to understand the noise of the sea –

“Mmm,” he hums, his hands in Thor’s lap tugging at his belt until he releases that great cock and strokes it firmly in hands that barely fit around it.

“I like it” he nods, and somehow Thor knows that he is talking about his words at least as much as about his cock. Loki kneels above his knees, unfastening and slipping out of his jeans in an almost magically fluid motion. Thor’s eyes never leave his face as Loki sucks on his own fingers and twists in a way that should have looked awkward as hell but on him looks like a dance movement as he pushes his fingers slowly up into himself. He smiles down at Thor and to Thor the look is close to angelic, he feels forgiven, and Loki smiles that he can offer it thus without having to say so. Loki shifts, and using his hands on Thor’s shoulder as a lever slowly sinks himself down inch by inch onto his waiting cock. Thor’s arms twist firmly around his back but it is Loki who sets the pace, biting his lip like a porn star, only for real, as he begins to move slowly as he adjusts to the mighty girth that fills him so completely.

Thor groans and wants, automatically to close his eyes for the extreme pleasure of it but he cannot take his eyes off Loki, not only here, not only having apparently forgiven him but riding his cock and electrifying him with sweeter sensations than he has ever imagined. He watches Loki’s face the whole time, alternately thrown back in ecstasy or looking down at him with that curious smile, half delighted, half afraid. Loki’s moaning sighs sing in his ears and he tingles at the press of his cock between their bodies. Wrapping one arm around him further to clutch his shoulder Thor snakes his other hand between them to take hold of that cock, squeezing and caressing almost but not entirely gently. Loki’s moans become more like snarls and when he leans his head back he can feel the sweat drip from his hair and onto his skin. He growls in delight both radiant and raw and when he looks down, open mouthed into Thor’s face again Thor can see how close he is. He jerks his hips up savagely to thrust back and it is too much for Loki, who screams as he comes, holding onto Thor as though for dear life, and shooting hot and powerfully into his hand and across his shirt. Thor feels himself come close behind, and as Loki shudders the vibrations draw out Thor’s orgasm as he buries his head into Loki’s chest, holding onto him in turn as though he will never let go.

Loki sinks bonelessly into Thor’s lap, still clenching around his slowly softening length, burying his face in Thor’s neck and – though he wishes there was another word for it – _snuggling_ warmly against him. He has never _snuggled_ before and does not want to admit how good it feels. Over Thor’s shoulder, the rising sun flares across the factory ruins more beautiful perhaps than he has ever seen it before, an immense garden of reds and pinks and yellows – and he has never cared less about it, just plays like a cat at the light catching in Thor’s hair and illuminating golden strands like rivers in the sunlight. He pulls his face back to watch the play of sunlight and a rough, gentle hand strokes his face, turning him to him to kiss. Loki smiles when they stop, head humming like a dream –

“Don’t leave this time” he says quietly, thinking how different this is from last time. Thor shakes his head, looking at Loki mutely, chest tight at the thought of all he could have lost. Loki for his part, cannot believe he has dared ask such a thing and to hide it, buries his face back in Thor’s shoulder. Thor holds him gently, almost comfortingly except for how hard he feels he has to hold on, as the sun stretches its shadows across what feel like so much more than one brand new day.

__x__

“Damn” Loki says, eventually, lifting his head and slowly extricating himself from Thor’s lap, though all the while staying as close to him as he can possibly stay – “I’m _starving_ – I – I kinda didn’t eat –”

“What? Before you came out here _how_ many hours ago?” Thor frowns, guessing that Loki had sat out here almost all night.

“Since – um – I saw you last,” Loki admits.

Thor’s frown turns into astonishment and then a glare –

“What? Loki, that was _six days ago!_ ”

Loki shuffles awkwardly, almost like a shifty child as he gets back into his clothes –

“Sometimes I – er – forget –”

“How?” Thor cannot get his head around it, he knows how cranky he gets if he has to go half a day without eating – “How do you forget for that long?”

“I said I was starving didn’t I? I – I –I –” he breaks into a stammer, not having admitted or even mentioned anything like this to anyone before – “Sometimes I’m not so great at taking care of myself –” he looks down, a little ashamed as he gets to his feet, looking away from Thor. Thor rises, turning Loki around gently and holding him tenderly close, not as surprised as he could have been by this information.

“It’s okay.” He pats Loki’s back in a manner more brotherly than anything else – “It’s okay Loki, you don’t have to anymore.”

Loki looks up at him, this is new, this thing where somebody takes care of him, he doesn’t trust it but he thinks tentatively that he could really get to like it.

“So” he says – “Volstagg’s bar and grill?”

“Oh my god,” Thor concurs, his stomach suddenly reminding him that while he may have eaten, it’s been nothing but snacks for the greater part of a week.

“By the way,” Loki adds, as he hops onto the back of Mjolnir – “When we get back you’re cleaning the club and you owe Heimdall for a bottle of absinthe.”

__x__

 

**I’m getting so sad – I just realised there only maybe 3-4 chapters of this to go now! I love this story, I’ve gotten too attached…..may have to do sequel! GOD DAMN!**

**A further note on my trigger warnings cause I’m wondering – do I over- warn? Like, I don’t want to treat anything as minor that I think could hurt somebody because that’s just rude. I also don’t want to undermine other triggers by just trigger warning everything but I know that what’s important to someone is always different from what’s important to someone else and I am aware of the huge effects that stories can have. I never want my effects to involve hurting anyone and – well, I’ve just been thinking about this a lot lately! I am really passionate about usage of correct trigger warnings and….oh I think I’ll just have a full babble about this on my tumblr! (I’m shadow-in-the-shade should you care to find me!!!!) Thank you.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry it’s been such a while. I have spent the whole week it seems doing exciting and busy things for my birthday – but here I am, back with your next instalment! :-)**

**Note as before, the first song that Loki does not quite sing is “Poison” the second “I am made of you”, both Alice Cooper.**

**9.**

 

“ _Fuck – Loki,”_ Thor groans, not for the first time that evening, sweat beading his forehead as he rolls bonelessly onto his back, his eyes leaving that crookedly smiling face only to rake the pale form he has spent the last few days in claiming for his own. The amber trailer light, dull on the green faux silk sheets, stains Loki’s pale skin in bars of green and gold, painting him like some strange sea creature in a wash of colour that looks more artistic than it could be real. Thor stares at him in near despair of that otherworldly beauty, and rolls onto his side to gently trace the patterns of light on Loki’s skin, rough fingertips skimming him like a sweet breeze and Loki sighs in intense happiness, turning his head on the pillow to smile back at him blissfully. Thor’s fingers make their way to Loki’s shoulder and his heart fairly sinks to feel his cock rise again so soon. Loki smirks and wriggles at the feel of that hardness against his hip, he groans happily –

“ _You_ are not human”.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should. Can’t stand humans.”

Loki wriggles in close and nuzzles his face into the place at Thor’s neck that is rapidly becoming so familiar and comforting, he feels like he has lived there all his life. Or that if he has not, then he should have done. He shivers, arching like a cat as Thor’s fingers run down his spine, his hands curving over his hips, large enough to enfold him almost completely before almost mischievous fingers snake their insinuating route round to Loki’s inner thighs – it is a mischief Loki has taught him himself and it brings what he thought was his spent cock to twitch in return.

“Tho-oor –” he whines at the persistent erection nudging against him with fully renewed vigour – “I have to be at wo-rk – Heimdall –” he flails wildly for a control he has never been good at grasping, wanting but not wanting to express a sense of something strange and positively alien to him – a sense of – he shudders in disgust at the though – _duty._ Of obligation to Heimdall for not only letting him stay after everything, but for letting him back on the stage after the stunt he pulled nine days ago. Indeed, for not only letting him back on the stage but for entirely changing the nature of his act.

__x__

“I suppose I should be impressed that you are at least getting your own mess cleaned up even if it not by your own hands,” Heimdall said on their return, as Loki perched, almost nervously, on a bar stool whilst Thor meekly set about sweeping broken glass from what seemed like every corner of the club. Loki had already observed the barman’s classic eye roll at the sight of them, creeping back into the club later that afternoon, hand in hand, both shy and awkward and in a state of near perfect peace. Acting far more certain of Heimdall’s welcome back than he really was, he had sauntered over to the bar, handing Thor a dustpan and brush with a winning grin and the peck of a kiss on the nose before looking to Heimdall for a drink. Heimdall had impassively handed him a coke.

“ _So –_ when do I get a real drink again?” he chanced.

“You don’t.” Heimdall lies, knowing it will only be a matter of days that he can keep this up – “ _Neither_ of you,” he adds in a louder voice – “Until you have proven yourselves worthy.”

“Well how do we do that without my being allowed back on your stage?”

“How you do twist my words, Lie smith. I am sure I never said anything of the kind.”

Loki mumbles something about _implied_ but nonetheless sips his coke like the good boy he suspects he ought to be for this to go well.

“Tell me,” Heimdall continues – “Do you think you can do Alice Cooper _in tune_ when you’re not full of absinthe and rage?”

“You’re doubting my singing? After all this time – _really?”_

“After what I heard last night – you bet your ass I am.”

Loki sighs, opens his mouth and starts to sing, getting only as far as _Your blood like ice –_ before Heimdall groans loudly and bellows –

“NO! Anything but that!”

Loki rolls his eyes but has to concede a point, gently kicking himself for his temporary lack of imagination.

“Okay,” he mutters, looking down at the floor, watching his foot move to a beat that only he can hear, and begins singing very quietly at first but with such a sadness on the first line that Thor stops what he is doing and turns to look at him in concern, Loki’s voice could have convinced him that he truly felt as cold and alone as the words would have you believe, but by the time he reaches the end of the first verse his voice rings out loud and clear across the deserted club, so that each _I am made of you_ seems to reverberate like bells from the columns, sweeping the room like glorious searchlights. Even Heimdall pauses in his previous attempt to cut Loki off after a few lines, to listen and for Thor it is as though he is singing the last few lines straight into his heart like a directed beam of sunlight, chasing away every shadow he previously held onto. At the end there is silence as the last note echoes out around the room and Loki can all but feel the touched approval of his two listeners. He allows himself to bask in that approval until the silence and respect begin to feel awkward and he looks up, smiling, nodding to himself –

“Nice acoustics,” he mutters. Thor shakes his head affectionately and carries on sweeping; Heimdall simply nods and slides a shot of absinthe over the bar. Loki raises the glass in a silent cheer to the silence that he knows signifies having his job back, albeit in a less sequinned capacity.

“But no pulling the plug on me this time okay?”

“I never pulled it on you the first time.”

“What?” Loki squints – “You cut my sound! You know you did!”

Heimdall shakes his head –

“I didn’t cut anything” he admits – “You think _I_ work the sound in here, Loki? You think I just _know_ what you’re going to sing every night?”

“Well – yes!”

“I don’t. Even I cannot see into _that_ head. _You_ make the music Loki, this club plays the songs that _your_ heart sings. Because mine is silent. This club and your trailer – all those times you thought there was a radio you just never found? There was. It just wasn’t in the trailer. You get me?”

“So I – I short circuited my own fuse?”

“In a word.”

“That should _not_ make the sense it does. So – before I was here this place was –”

“I told you, we’d been waiting for you a long time.”

_It’s not just Loki, The Lokasenna whispers, it’s all of you. You all dance to the song in your own heart. You write the words to the song, the steps to the dance. You change your own channels and make your own music, nobody else is going to do it for you. You write the story of your own life and let others in to contribute not to control. You will weave your own footsteps and we will watch you weave._

__x__

_And now._

“Heimdall can wait,” Thor growls, his hands stroking mercilessly at Loki’s cock, starting to rut against him needily with his own – “But I cannot”.

Loki groans, unable and unwilling to really argue.

“ _How_ many times today already?” he smiles.

“Not enough –” Thor’s voice feels thick, caught in his throat on a tugging crest of lust, a wave he has been riding constantly these last few days, any distance away from Loki; even just not fucking him feels like too far away.

“I suppose I _am_ quite irresistible,” Loki teases, rolling languidly over and onto his hands and knees.

“You are _mine,”_ Thor agrees and insists, using Loki’s waist as a grip to pull himself up onto his knees, pushing the head of his throbbing cock against his entrance, still slick and ready from the last, so-recent, time – “ _Mine –_ I could fuck you forever and not have had enough –”

It is ridiculous, he supposes how much his hands still shake with want after so many times, and to still them he drags his fingers, almost but not quite scratching down Loki’s back as he thrusts into him brutally, with savage relentless need, burying himself to the hilt inside him and only then feeling anywhere near to close enough to him. He holds onto Loki’s hip to slam into him over and over, roaring his pleasure as he does so and curling the other hand around Loki’s cock in grateful pleasure at feeling that hard length back in his hand. Incredible to think that barely weeks ago this would have seemed strange to him. Now he rams into Loki like he has been doing it forever, Loki’s cries music to his ringing ears; giving all he has into ravaging that tight perfect body, crushing them both so close together they could be the one person he suspects deep down they might be and helpless though he feels it is too good, Loki’s heat and tightness too perfect to hold out against any longer and he comes before he can help himself, screaming Loki’s name in offering to any god that might be listening, his one perfect prayer. As he shakes, first furiously and then gradually slowing he squeezes and caresses Loki’s cock while Loki trembles on weak knees, unsure this should even be possible. He has already come more times than he could count and as he feels himself so close he wonders if it could actually kill him – it is his last thought before he shakes and aches and spills into that large loving hand and Thor strokes his hair calming him as he screams and shudders, eyes leaking, throat rough, curling in to let Thor hold him tight against his chest.

When the world stops spinning and Loki can even halfway hear beyond the pounding in his ears he groans softly and pulls away, weakly moaning –

“Time? What time?” It is a pitiful attempt to form words but luckily Thor knows what he means and glances at his watch on the window ledge.

“Nine fifty.”

“What!” Loki sits bolt upright, suddenly finding the strength to make his limbs function – “Shit – Thor I’m on in _ten minutes!_ Look at me – oh _fuck!”_ He leaps out of the bed, every muscle in his body protesting, babbling a constant stream of _fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_ as he scrambles for a dressing gown, throws one on and hurtles out the door and across the parking lot, Thor following in still somewhat befuddled pursuit. By the time he reaches Loki’s dressing room Loki has already poured his aching, objecting limbs into some clothes and is scrabbling madly around the mirror for make-up. He grabs an eyeliner, shakes it and then hurls it across the room in frustration –

“Thor, help! I need an eyeliner – this one’s dead!”

“Help – how?” Thor frowns, still struggling with the world.

“I think there’s a spare in my backpack, under the bed in the trailer – would you?”

Loki fixes him an attempt at a dazzling smile that comes out just looking hassled and Thor only moans softly in reply, heading back out of the dressing room –

“Quickly!” Loki yells as he retreats.

Back in the trailer Thor digs under the bed for the bag that at one time Loki took with him everywhere like a snail with its shell and drags it out. It is of course half full and Loki didn’t tell him even faintly where eyeliner would be. He has no huge wish to disappoint Heimdall with Loki’s lateness either and so takes the bag and shakes it upside down. A ragged assortment of crap falls out – but emphatically no eyeliner, _of course._ He is just scooping everything back into the bag when his eye catches on the piece of paper in his hand. He looks at it again and the bottom falls out of his world for the second time that month.

It’s a photo, creased to the consistency of near tissue, folded and tattered around the edges, but he still recognises it as though it was yesterday and it falls from his shaking hand as a memory hits him clear as crystal –

_Late evening, their mother was out. He sits on the edge of the bed in pyjamas about to go in to sleep when their father comes in. He goes to the other bed where his little brother is already sleeping. This is wrong! His mind cries it to him instantly – father never acknowledges the other child, never! He is instantly on edge, alert. Father gives him half a glance as he picks the child up, wrapped in its blanket so as not to wake him – only half a glance for he will not fully meet his eye –_

_“Say goodbye to your brother, Thor.”_

_And nothing more. Nothing but his own screamed denials, a thunderous stream of NONONO and a cuff around the head for making a scene. He is still sobbing when he writes the note on the back of the only photo he ever had of them both and slips it in the blanket with his one – time brother, who sleeps through it all as though nobody’s life is being broken here -_

Thor gingerly picks the photo back up as his brain torments him by making all the connections he could never have wanted to make. He does not need to turn the photo over to read the message on the back but he does it anyway, both with a feeling of sinking slow motion and in the space of a missed heartbeat. The words are faded but still true, a clumsy childish hand, the clunky pen strokes smudged with fallen tears –

The door to the trailer slams open and Loki whirls in for barely a second –

“It’s okay! I found it!” he yells, jarring into Thor’s overworking heart, he kisses him brief as a raindrop on the top of the head and is gone again, whirling out the door like a small black cyclone.

Thor does not react. _Cannot_ react, a numb weird silence in his ears and in his head as he looks down again at that faded blue legend in his own twelve year old hand –

_Know that you were loved._

___x___

**I’m a horrible person, I just am.**

**….not that you hadn’t seen this coming of course but I just had to end it there for now! Just one or two chapter more until our happy ending folks!....at least until the sequel anyway! Sequel is happening. Very happening.**

**Random fyi of the day – I _know_ really that “I am made of you” is a great big god metaphor but seriously – here’s the lyrics – tell me it’s not sooo very Thorki. I just can’t hear it now without hearing Loki sing it. **

**_“In the beginning I was just a shadow_ ** _/ **In the beginning I was alone**_   
_**In the beginning I was blind, living in a world devoid of light** _   
_**In the beginning there was only night** _   
  
_**I was shattered, left in pieces/ And I felt so cold inside** _   
_**Then I called you from the darkness/Where I hide** _   
  
_**I am made of you** _   
  
_**In the beginning you were revelation/A river of salvation and now I believe** _   
  
_**All I wanted, all I needed/ Was someone to rescue me** _   
_**I was drowning, I was dying/ Now I'm free** _   
  
_**I am made of you** _   
  
_**Here I am now, I can stand now/ Cause your love has made me strong** _   
_**And forever you're the singer/ I'm the song** _   
  
_**I am made of you”** _


	10. Chapter 10

He closes his eyes; wanting to disbelieve it as he puts the photo back in the backpack, the bag back under the bed, wondering if he could ever un-see it. Wanting to disbelieve the words that rise from his own unwilling lips –

“ _Loki -”_ he whispers – “ _Brother.”_

He sits on the trailer floor, unmoving and unaware as it sinks into his brain like lead. Almost all of him struggles to take the information in, erecting a quick, high wall every time, that breaks in an instant, scattering debris through his brain. Then there is the smaller part- the part that worries him, if anything even more- that is somehow not so surprised. The treacherous part of him that he fears guessed it all along but refused to really let him in on it.

How bitterly ironic, he thinks, to have spent his whole life searching, hoping for a reconciliation that now discovered he shies away from. It seems like an eon has passed before his brain even manages to throw up the relevant question – _so what happens now?_ He cannot help but think of all they have already been through, the assorted mish-mash of memory – a montage of meeting, hating, fighting, finding, fucking, loving – until they reached this point that was just starting to feel like perfection. He bitterly thinks that of course, it was just too perfect to be true- and then the rest of his brain kicks that like an angry horse and he shocks himself by arguing back _why? Why does this have to change anything? Why can we not simply carry on as we were, and all the better for this new knowledge?_ His profoundly rooted moral brain wails _because it’s wrong_ with no real foothold for the assumption or the clichéd morality that he can really hold on to. He does not want to even try and see wrong in actions that have felt like the only right his life has ever known.

He is still sat on the floor, staring at nothing, when the door hurls open and Loki’s rather angry face peers in –

“Thor, where the hell have you been?” he frowns, and comes fully into the trailer, his scowl turning into concern – “Have you even moved since I left you here? What the hell’s the matter?”

Thor slowly turns his head and his face, when Loki sees his eyes, is so stricken that it pours cold hurt and fear into him like a torrent of falling ice.

“What?” he asks, unable to keep a shrill note from creeping into his voice – “What is it?”

He sits down as heavily as his slight build allows, and puts what he means to be a calming hand on the back of Thor’s neck. Thor jerks at the touch that so usually calms and at the same time thrills him – not wanting it to at the same time as wanting the touch.

“ _Thor_ –” Loki hisses, the ice creeping into his voice as the strings of the heart twang like overwrought instruments, more deeply hurt by Thor’s reaction than he would like to be – “What the actual fuck?”

“Loki,” Thor says flatly, words falling like lead bricks – “We – need to talk.”

Loki’s eyes flash instantly wild and he looks balanced ready to run or fight. Thor’s eyes follow the fingers that twist their way subconsciously to the pocket where Thor knows he keeps a switchblade. He has noticed by now that Loki’s hand always moves that way by involuntary instinct at the slightest hint that could make him feel threatened. He also is under no delusions that Loki would be remotely afraid to use it.

“ _No,”_ Loki whispers, his eyes narrowing into anger that calms him rather than the panic that could consume him – “Nonono you don’t Thor, don’t you _dare –_ I know _we need to talk_ and you are _not_ leaving me again – you’re not, do you hear?”

Thor watches him warily, realising that he is only not actually afraid of Loki right now because he knows he has no intention of leaving. For a moment his hands quiver on the current of not knowing what to do, to take Loki’s hands in his seems the safest move – but in the end it is no contest, and he clasps Loki’s neck, fingers rubbing into the back of the neck in the way he knows has always calmed him –

_Dear god_ he thinks, with a sudden flash of memory – _and so it did when he was a child too._

“Hush Loki, hush –” he murmurs, trying to sound calmer than he feels, and he sees, at very least, that slightly murderous edge go out of Loki’s glare – “I’m not leaving you. Never. I promised, didn’t I – not even if you try and make me – it’s – it’s –” _How do you say something like that? How do you just drop that out? It’s just that you’re my brother – oh is that all?_ “Here –” he says, reaching back under the bed, in his strained confusion going about this in every wrong way that he can – “I found this in your backpack –”

“Well who said you could go through there at all?” Loki snaps, nostrils flaring, breath coming fast in his irrational aggravation.

“You did.”

Loki grunts sullenly but cannot deny it –

“And I found this,” he takes the photo out again, treacherous fingers finding it so easily. He hands it to Loki, whose face instantly closes up into a semi-blank but still angry mask. His fingers worry the edge of the photo as Thor realises they have been wont to do for years.

“You shouldn’t have looked at this” he spits – “This is – this is _private.”_ He shakes his head – “What of it anyway?”

Thor looks at the ground and takes a deep breath.

“Loki – _I_ gave you that.”

“What?” for a moment Loki looks at him squinting, not quite comprehending, and actually half laughs at what sounds to him like the ridiculousness of that statement. Then he shakes his head –

“Don’t be silly – how can you have….” Thor watches it dawn on him, without even being able to enjoy the fact that for once Loki is being slower than him. Then, to his immense surprise Loki shrugs.

“You’re my brother. I should have known. There’s no other way you could annoy me as much.”

Thor blinks, staring at Loki, unable to grasp how he can be taking it so lightly, uncertain if he _is_ taking it lightly – it is so hard to tell with Loki; he cries at the tiniest provocation and shrugs off monumental concerns like nothing, and sometimes, Thor, has learned, he means it that way, and sometimes he very much does not. He is mercurial to the point of extreme confusion, not only for Thor but he suspects Loki confuses himself even more.

“Loki –” Thor says slowly, trying to be careful but failing as badly as ever. “I don’t think you understand –”

“Do I not?” Loki looks at him sharply, eyes flashing with that dangerous green flare and Thor kicks himself that in his attempt to make Loki take this seriously, he has only succeeded in making him angry – “Do you think I _care?_ Do you think I have _ever_ cared about the people who gave up on me first? Except to congratulate them in getting in there before anyone else? The Laufeys brought me up like one of their own – more’s the pity - and believe me, that’s all the family I ever needed – I ran away from that hole when I was twelve and I never looked back. So don’t tell me I need to care or even _think_ about people who thought I was good for even less than they did –” Loki’s lip curls into a sneer, twitching as he snarls this out, his hand curling into a fist.

“It is a wonder then that you kept this at all,” Thor says quietly, more perceptive to Loki’s lies – or at any rate omissions – already than Loki would like.

Loki smooth’s out the photo he has been scrunching in his palm, and Thor can see from the familiarity of the gesture how often he has repeated this cycle. For a moment it looks like he will just tear it up but then he stuffs it angrily into his pocket.

“So what if somebody cared,” he mutters. “How was _that_ supposed to help – you didn’t stop me being taken away did you?”

It stings because there is a part of him – the part that he has been trying to drown in whiskey all this time – that has always blamed himself for this, and trust Loki to stab straight to the heart of it - but he can see the look of self-disgust that rushes across Loki’s face as the accusation is barely out of his mouth, and he knows he regrets the barb, little though he will admit it.

“I tried!” he protests, he does not mean it to sound as broken as it comes out – “I –I- I – I was twelve, there was nothing I could do. Mother was out, she would never have allowed it either-“

“She’s dead,” Loki states flatly, and Thor is unsure of whether it is a statement or a question. Nevertheless he nods, and looking sideways at Loki sees a look of distress flicker and fade across Loki’s face as though he has only just lost the mother he did not know he had.

“It doesn’t matter.” Loki adds quickly. Thor frowns, not knowing if it is just this last that he is dismissing or all of it – “None of it,” he clarifies, as though reading his mind, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes fierce. “I don’t care –” he pauses, searching frantically for something he can add to make this sound more convincing, fails and falls to repeating  “I don’t care,” in a mutter that belies the truth. “And if you do and if you leave – again – well, fuck it I don’t even care, d’you hear me?”

He glares at Thor defensively, daring him to call him out on this. Thor does not.

“Loki –” he says slowly. “I love you – I –”

“Well of course you do,” Loki sneers, maliciously – “I’m your _brother._ Tell me, did you lose your hard-on the instant you found out, or are you freaking out because you didn’t? Oh, _fuck_ you –” he snaps, without giving Thor the chance to reply, standing up and turning away from him, resting a hand on the kitchen door frame, back to Thor – “You can’t even _look_ at me.”

Thor stands up, quickly, guiltily realising that it is at least partially true – he has not been able to look Loki in the eye since he came in. Loki, bizarrely, walks over and starts to wash his make-up off in the tiny kitchen sink, watching the water run in white and black streaks down the plug hole and looking anywhere but at Thor. He does it casually – far too casually; Thor can see the hunch in his shoulders and muscles there bunching together so tense it looks actually painful. He feels like a clumsy oaf; _however much I love you all I do is hurt you_ he thinks, hard and hollow in his belly. He wants to hurt Loki less than anything in the world -so then why, he curses himself, _why is he so damn good at it?_ He reaches out to take Loki’s shoulder, to turn him to face him, but Loki flinches and twists away before he can even get close –

“Don’t touch me!” Loki snarls, baring his teeth like a cornered animal, twisting away from Thor as far as the tiny kitchen will allow, which is not nearly as far as Loki can retreat into himself, so fast Thor can almost see him falling away from him and no way of reaching to him – “I swear I _will_ hurt you,” he spits.

“I do not doubt it,” Thor replies, truthfully, fighting back because he would rather anger Loki than see him drift further – “Neither do I care. Hurt me if you will I will still love you. I will always love you, I knew it when I first saw you and nothing there has changed. Brother or not there is no way in which I do not want you, no part of you I do not want – only –” he falters, the eyes he had fixed on Loki’s stony face dropping away again – “Only – it’s wrong.”

“Oh _here_ we go –” Loki rolls his eyes angrily, yet with the briefest twitch of a smirk- “Wondered how long it would take you. Who taught you these simpering, apathetic morals I wonder? Was it the same father who put me out with the trash?”

“Loki I swear – if I could have –”

“You couldn’t,” Loki says shortly, though this time not unkindly – “Don’t beat yourself up about it Thor, I –”

“I have spent my life beating myself up for it!” Thor yells suddenly, unable to take Loki’s casual dismissal of this fact any longer, though he knows Loki could not have known it – “I have spent my whole life trying to rid myself of _his_ run of the mill morality and judgemental bigotry and ever since I could I have been looking for you - I just thought –”

“You expected better?”

“For god’s sake, will you _stop_ these inane and inaccurate assumptions that only justify an anger you do not need to feel? I should have had a lifetime in which to argue with you and tell you to shut up – you will excuse me if I make up for it now – Loki, _shut up!”_

To his surprise Loki does as he is told and even looks happy about it.

“As you say, _brother,”_ he drawls, only half sarcastically.

“I could not have expected better,” Thor goes on, almost softly – “What I _expected,_ if I ever dared expect anything, was that when I found you – _if_ I found you it would simply be my brother that I found and not my – my –”

He breaks off. He had noticed and thought that it was only Loki who started to stammer when he became emotional. Apparently they were more alike than he had thought.

“What?” Loki asks, purely quizzical. Thor looks up at him wide, eyed, honest, searching and brokenly –

“My everything,” he says simply. He places a heavy hand on Loki’s shoulder and this time Loki lets him. He feels the strength of Loki’s muscles and the slightness of his bones and through the rush of different feelings that run though him - the mingled protectiveness and nervousness, irritation and desire – are confusing, Loki is right – they are not _wrong._ His hand clasps at Loki’s shoulder and without quite knowing he means to he drops onto his knees, wrapping his arms around Loki’s waist and burying his face in his hip.

Strange though it seems, he realises that Loki’s reaction was perhaps the right one all along, that in his less discriminatory, less obvious moral code he has, almost unbelievably, been the more honest of the two of them all along. He clings to Loki, unwilling to ever let go.

“Loki I’m sorry –” he chokes out, the words muffled in Loki’s shirt – “I’m so sorry, it’s me that’s been wrong – Loki, tell me what to do –”

“Well –” Loki says, and Thor cannot see his face to know if he really is as calm as he sounds, but he can faintly hear his heart beat and it tells him to suspect otherwise. “You can stop making my shirt damp” – he had not even realised he had been crying – “And you can get off your big dumb knees unless you’re planning on proposing while you’re down there –”

In truth Loki is unsure what to do at suddenly finding himself in the position of power here – though he is not certain he hates it by a long way - and it alarms him to see Thor so undone. Reassured though Thor has made him in his love, he feels himself perilously close to an admission of his own. He is deeply relieved to feel Thor smile through his tears –

“Would you say yes?”

“I wouldn’t _not_ say yes –” Loki begins cagily. Thor looks up at him, eyes like the sea and smile like sunshine and he knows that whatever admission he had teetered on making there would have been true.

“Maybe not this day,” Thor smiles.

“Oh thank god. Now _please_ stand up. I would rather not acquire a brother only to have him be an absolute idiot.”

“Well I would rather my brother were not a spoilt brat but –” Loki punches him on the arm as he stands up. Thor grins –

“I could get used to this.”

He looks at Loki a moment before his smile fades from his lips, stays in his eyes and he crushes Loki close to his chest and they both cling to each other as though the whole world seeks to part them.

“Nothing _has_ to change, right?” Loki says, in the merest whisper against Thor’s chest – “This can just – make things better?”

Thor strokes his hair and kisses the top of his head and, even though he cannot touch Loki without becoming aroused, though he can feel his cock rising at the feel of that body against him he whispers the words he has wanted to say, without quite being able to name it, his whole life, words that seem to him magical, an incantation waiting to be uttered –

“It’s alright, it’s okay now little brother, I’ve got you, I’ll look after you, it’s okay.”

Loki hears the magic and it sends shivers through him, but shivers that feel so pleasant he does not feel scared enough to run away back into himself. He looks up at Thor and Thor can see the mischief flashing green in his eyes, a spark like a promise –

“ _Brother –”_ he whispers, for the first time not in a sneer, but curling his lips around the word lovingly – “I think I may be acquiring a kink.”

__x__

**Yes, in case you haven’t guessed, the plot of the next chapter is “I just discovered you’re my brother but we’re gonna fuck anyway”. Oh yes. And talking, there are still more words to behind. Loki _may_ say the thing. :-) **

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Sex! Brother sex! That is all. Seriously.**

Loki is so _light,_ so small next to him that it surprises Thor every time he realises it again, and it makes him feel a curious combination of protective and aroused as he lifts Loki up to hold him in his arms, Loki wrapping his legs around Thor’s waist and his arms about his neck. He suspects that it is a feeling he is just going to have to get used to. Loki’s hair falls against his face as he looks down on Thor with curving lips, swiftly turning kissy. Loki’s lips are so soft, always softer than he remembers or expects every time, the taste slightly bitter, lemon and sugar all at once. If he could have kissed Loki every second of every day he would still never feel like he had had enough. He feels the rise of Loki’s chest as he breaks away to look down at him again and knows that he must be gazing back with something like worship in his eyes. He smiles upwards and in return Loki’s eyes darken and turn shifty with confusion.

“What is it?” he asks, concerned. Loki shakes his head and does not reply, surprised to find himself struggling to articulate what he wants to say – something that has never been a problem before, but seems to be happening more and more, at least around Thor. Thor does not keep him awkward, but carries him through to the bedroom where he throws him, more awkwardly than he had meant to in his attempts to navigate the cramped doorway. He follows in as Loki twists into a more comfortable position and as Loki watches him settle in above him he realises that it was not articulation he was lacking – it was courage –

“I was scared,” he blurts out quickly, fighting the instinct to rein the confession in by forcing it out too quickly.

“What?” Thor frowns, immediately realises that Loki was answering his previous question and internally kicks himself for the fleetingly distraught look that marches across his face –

“I was scared –” he repeats, as though it had not been difficult enough the first time – “That you wouldn’t want me any more –” his eyes dart around, not daring to meet Thor’s as he terrifies himself with his own confession – “That you – you ‘d only see me as your brother – and so you – wouldn’t be able to touch me –”

Thor smiles, his hands gently, insistently starting to roam Loki’s body, silently answering and soothing away his fears –

“And I was scared –” he replies, in disbelief – “Because I knew that I would. That there is nothing that could stop me wanting – _needing_ you – to touch you, my Loki, my little brother –”

“ _Fuck –”_ Loki hisses, arching up and into Thor’s hands, as those fingers burst electric across his skin. “Say that again.”

“Little brother?”

“Mmm, yeah –” Loki positively purrs, head rolling as he gives himself up, eyes closing as his body arches like a bow. “That,” he groans, Thor’s hand palming his cock through the rough fabric, fingers tugging at his belt. He fails to stifle a whimper, lifting his hips to let Thor pull his pants down entirely without finesse, feels his brother’s breath warm on his neck, his hair tickle his face and his forehead sticky with perspiration as he presses it against his own. Thor closes his eyes, chest racing so fast he can almost hear it hum and kisses a trail across Loki’s face from beneath his eye to growl in his ear –

“I am going to fuck you, little brother.”

Loki closes his eyes in return, a deep involuntary growl rising up from too deep a place to come out as a human sounding noise. Thor grins at the efficiency of the effect he is finding these words to have, pulling back to unbuckle himself while Loki reaches needily for him, nuzzling frenetic kisses into his neck, shoulder, hair, anywhere he can reach and then breaking off just as suddenly –

“Thor, would you –” he begins sharply;

“Yes” Thor replies.

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to ask if I would still love you if you were not my brother.”

“I was _not,”_ Loki pouts, disliking being second guessed; nobody else has ever managed it with him before. Finding it hard to believe even himself that he is actually starting an argument at a moment like this.

“You were so.”

“ _Was not.”_

“You’re a liar.”

“Congrats, you noticed.” Loki raises his eyebrows, trying not to smirk. Thor does smirk.

“I did not know you were my brother when I first saw you, did I?”

“So this isn’t some kind of – you know – that separation- attraction disorder or whatever they call it?”

“I do not think they call it _that._ ”

“Shut up Thor, you know what I mean.”

“Loki –” Thor’s lips curve into a grin, knowing that he might actually get away with the tease, indeed the test, this time. “I thought you didn’t care – not even if I went away, you said?” Loki glares at him.

“ _Shut up Thor,”_ he repeats emphatically – “Or _I’ll_ be the one who goes away.”

Thor bares his teeth in a soft, not quite conscious snarl, grabbing Loki’s hips and yanking him down the bed more savagely than he had intended before Loki started annoying him. He wonders briefly if this is not in fact what Loki had wanted, if he is playing him once again – wonders briefly because _of course_ Loki is playing him, at least in part. He always is; and Thor is surprised to realise that he is pretty much okay with that. So he pulls him down beneath him and pushes his legs back by the ankles as harshly as Loki could wish, thrilling at the tiny struggle Loki puts up, he is certain, just to inflame him further, holding him tight and jerking his monstrously erect cock against Loki’s thigh.

“You are going _nowhere_ brother,” he growls, and could swear he feels Loki’s heart flutter to hear it – “You are _mine,_ and I’m not letting go of you _ever_ again. There is no power or circumstance on this earth that could make me not want you. If you had not been my brother I would want you just as I do now. If we had grown up together I would have wanted you as soon as I was old enough to know what wanting was, and I would have started fucking you as soon as _you_ were – trust me there is no reality in which my cock does not need to be inside you –”

“So I guess we have time to make up for then huh?” Loki grins, voice light but his eyes, Thor can see, are so dark they are almost black, and he answers by dragging the length of his cock across Loki’s and pressing the swollen head against his tight entrance. At the same time he smiles into those dark eyes tenderly, fingers combing through Loki’s hair;

“And if we had all the time in the world,” he replies – “-it would not be enough. There is so much making up to do.”

“Well then, I suggest you start now.” Loki throws Thor the bottle of lube to emphasis his point and Thor rubs some into his cock swiftly before throwing it aside, pinning Loki back down by the shoulders. Loki moans loud enough to embarrass himself at the roughness of it and Thor grins –

“You _like_ it when I seem to force you.”

“Yes, and _you_ like it when I seem to struggle, we still have so much more to play with –”

“Shut up Loki,” Thor growls, and any further witty retort dies on Loki’s lips as Thor thrusts into him brutally, aching with need, sheathing himself in Loki completely and holding himself there, groaning in a near scream into his neck.

“Fuck –” Loki hisses, digging his nails into Thor’s shoulders as Thor slams into him – “ _Brother.”_ Thor’s hands run up the length of his arms as he fucks him, pulling his arms up above his head to pin him like a bug, both his wrists bound in one of Thor’s much larger hands. If Loki were not so strong Thor would fear to break that little body beneath his own as he pounds him mercilessly into the bed. Loki is so _small_ and yet he can still take as much as Thor can give him which is more than he has ever given anyone. Loki’s cries are coloured with a burning but delicious pain as Thor fills him so completely and he knows nothing but the blissful ferocity of his brother’s lust.

It never could have occurred to Loki to want as much as this, let alone imagine there was more, yet even as Thor fucks him like an animal he feels the hand that is not pinning him stroke his face with a gentle touch of which he would not imagine hands so large and so rough to be capable. The very gentleness of the stroke against his cheek makes him want to cry, stroking him in a place not even Thor’s furious fucking can reach. It feels _wonderful,_ completely and indescribably, and as such it terrifies him, those fingers like a whisper on the skin, that touch from the person pounding into him like a monster. The latter he can cope with, but the two things, especially together, threaten to destroy every foul assumption he ever made about himself and so as Thor crashes against him like the lightning fit to split the earth it is this gentle brush like a summer breeze that has him quaking in the centre of the storm.

“Thor –” he whispers, afraid, eyes brimming, not wanting to look up longer and see those eyes, storm clouds in their skies looking down at him the way they are. He turns his head on the pillow, twisting to escape that gaze, that touch, but those remorseless fingers gently force his face back, the breeze caressing his forehead cheek, jaw, lips. Thor, as he plunges into him again and again pauses in the moment before he comes to whisper –

“I love you Loki,” – and then his back arches in a screaming knot-work of muscle against Loki’s burrowing face as he pours his hot come into Loki furiously, lovingly, devastatingly and Loki, those dreadful beloved fingers going to his cock, comes too, sobbing silently, clinging onto Thor that his brother might not see his tears.

“Loki,” Thor whispers gently, rolling onto his side and holding Loki in a cradling embrace against his chest, stroking him gently everywhere he can reach, his hands easing Loki’s shaking even as they cause it – “Loki Loki Loki – are you crying because I love you?”

Loki looks up at him and even through his tears rolls his eyes at him in infinite exasperation –

“Thor,” he sniffs – “You absolute – you are so monumentally obtuse – you idiot - _no_ –” he closes his eyes and mumbles into his shoulder, but he says it all the same, come hell and be damned – “I’m crying because _I love you.”_

Thor says nothing, but when he kisses Loki on the shoulder – the nearest thing he can reach -Loki can feel his smile, and somehow it feels like the absolution he had never quite known he always wanted.

__x__

**I was gonna make this chapter much longer but it turns out that the whole next bit would make it much MUCH longer so I’m dividing it into two bits cause this seemed like a good end of chapter! The post coital section will be the next chapter – _which means_ – there are still two more chapters to go!! It’s a beast this story, a wild ferocious thing that I just cannot control!!**

**FYI of the day, the thing Loki didn’t know the name of was GSA, Genetic Sexual Attraction, it’s a thing siblings sometimes get if they first meet as adults that some would like to classify as a disorder. Anyways Thor and Loki don’t have it, they just have love. :-)**


	12. Chapter 12

**12.**

_Can I tell you this thing?_ Loki thinks as he lies in Thor’s arms in the most peaceful silence he has ever known, that is not silence at all, loud as it is with breathing and with heart beat. _Can I tell you that was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life? Not just to make love but to tell you this thing that could destroy me? Can I tell you how helpless it feels to be at the mercy of needing someone so completely I could not be me without you? Can I tell you that it’s okay, that it feels right to be that way? Dear gods –_ his insides squirm with it – _can I tell you all of this?_ He looks up at Thor with the thousand questions dancing like lights in his eyes and wonders, as Thor smiles back at him, that gorgeous golden smile, if he even needs to say any of it. It is alien to Loki, using something other than words to communicate. He has fought his whole life to make himself a book that is only written in code, informing nothing but what he has chosen to impart. Yet somehow, if he has been a code then Thor has cracked it.

_Yes,_ he answers his own question – _I can – but not today. One day, and soon, but not this day._ He kisses Thor on the nose and goes out to the bathroom, such as it is. When he returns he sits up in bed, Thor curling into his side as he looks again at the crumpled remains of their only ever photograph.

“So this is me,” he states, nodding at the child in the photo.

“Of course,” Thor frowns – “Surely that part you could have assumed?”

“I never assumed anything Thor –” it comes out irritable but Thor knows it is not that so much as the difficulty of speaking of the things he has always avoided – “Better.” He says shortly – “Easier to imagine my whole life was a non – stop lie than to try and eke out any particles of truth. I was _told_ it was me of course, but why trust that? The lady didn’t _know_ it for sure any more than I did. The first orphanage – it was a mess. Could have been anyone’s picture.”

“You were a cute kid, you know,” Thor says and Loki smiles at him, grateful for the change of subject, even if the new one is just as testing on him – “I surprised myself by loving you. I mean – I was twelve, I think I might have been expected to hate you? But I couldn’t. Your eyes – I don’t remember a time they were not green.”

“Now you’re just romanticizing, you big douche.” Loki says, smirking affectionately – “Babies have blue eyes, even I know that and I can’t stomach the things –”

“Well, they are not for eating.”

“Oh god,” Loki states, flat as a pancake – “You’re so funny. It kills me. Shut up!”

“Anyway your eyes _were_ green and I – well I found myself falling quickly for any eyes that colour my entire adult life.”

“You. Are a hundred percent sicker than you think you are. You know that right?” Loki grins. Thor kisses the tip of his nose and growls at him to shut up. The photo lies limply in Loki’s fingers as he presses into Thor’s kiss, trailing to his lips to snuggle in warm and wonderful. Eventually Loki rolls his head back and picks the photo up again –

“And so this is you,” he states. Thor agrees.

“I always assumed that if this _was_ me – that this person was my brother.” Loki says musingly – “But it seemed hard to believe, I mean we look _nothing_ alike. Do you think perhaps we had different fathers?”

“Not if I knew mother,” Thor replies with no hesitation at all.

“And so this is her,” Loki murmurs, fingers resting lightly, almost a little reverently, on the final figure in the photograph – “I wish I had known her.” His eyes drop a little sadly – “What was she like?”

It is a hard question for anyone to answer directly. How do you encapsulate the essence of a person who is gone? How do you do them justice in enough words to fit one conversation? Thor tries, regretting the clumsiness he knows will come out of his mouth and yet what comes out has Loki hanging on every word –

“She was like a breeze on a hot day,” he says, closing his eyes, the better to bring back the memories he has himself avoided out of self-preservation. But he can do it now for Loki, and so bring her back to himself – “Very cool and very blue. A breeze that rumples the hair and you think it annoys you when you have to flatten it down each time but really you’re playing with the breeze and enjoying the game? She always smelled like grass. Soil. The mish-mash of meadow flowers that grew in the window boxes. I always wondered how she managed to always smell of the outdoors like that when we didn’t have a garden. But she said that just because you could hold every inch of it in your hand did not mean it was not a garden. She always talked to me like an adult even when I did not understand all the words.”

Loki blinks hard before answering –

“I never thought to care.” He shrugs as he says it but Thor can feel how forced it is – “I would look at that face and know that it looked kind but I told myself that had to be the worst of lies because kind or not she had still let me go –”

“She loved you Loki,” Thor interrupts firmly – “Always. She never would have – she left us. When she came home and she found out she walked out. I never heard them row so hard. But she came back two weeks later. I never knew why. I would not have come back. I was so mad that she left – but only because – I wanted to leave too. I never forgave father. Ever. And I don’t think she did either.”

“So she didn’t write this?” Loki turns the photo over and traces the faded letters, that had been faded from the first.

“No. How could she? She wasn’t there.”

“I used to get so angry. When I really wanted to hate myself the most I would look at this and hate whoever wrote it. Oh, I could see the marks – I knew whoever it was had cried on the page as they wrote it but even then I hated them for it – for someone who would cry self pityingly over me but give me up all the same. For not being able to think of anything more original to say –”

“I was just a kid!” Thor blurts out, hurt by these words. “I – I had no time, I didn’t know what to – all the words I had to give you – there was a lifetime still to come. I could not fit a lifetime into that tiny space….and so – I thought – I just thought it might help –” he finishes lamely, brimming over with inadequacy. Loki twists back round to press a soothing back of the hand to Thor’s face and though he misjudges and pats Thor in the eye instead by accident, it has the same desired effect and makes Thor frown and then smile, clearly relaxing a little.

“I’m not angry _now_ Thor. I’m not saying I still think that. I can’t lie and say I never blamed you, because I blamed anyone I could imagine up to blame. But it was wrong. It should have helped, it’s just – it’s just me that’s wrong. I would have been wrong no matter what.”

“Don’t flatter yourself –”

“That is hardly flattering.”

“You’re a whiny emo ass sometimes you know that – brother?”

“Well and you’re just a big dumb brute with a beat up bike, what of it?”

Thor grins –

“Mmm, insult me more.”

“What? This some weird new kink? Cause as weird new kinks go we’re doing pretty well today already, thank you _very_ much.”

“No!” Thor laughs – “Loki, not everything comes back to me wanting to fuck you.” Loki raises his eyebrows at him almost to the roof –

“Not _everything,”_ I said, Thor sighs – “Many things. Not everything. Loki –” he hugs Loki to him a little tighter – “I was so _happy_ when you were born. I was – well I guess I was a pretty lonely kid. Father was a pain in the ass and even though I did not wish that on anyone else I was so glad that I would not be alone anymore. I was so ready to see you grow up. I had so many fights to have with you, so many names to call you and secrets to share. I don’t know. All that shit that brothers do. I wanted that. So many times growing up I would talk to you in my head and – in my heart and I would imagining you listening to me so hard I sometimes convinced myself you really could hear me –” he breaks off, partly realising how odd this sounds and partly because Loki is looking at him oddly – “What?”

“I did the same thing,” Loki confesses quietly – “On those strange days when I did not hate the concept of all things family I would form remarks in my head that I would say to my brother is he were with me and find myself straining to catch a reply it sometimes seemed I could almost hear and I wondered –” he smiles to himself at the memory – “I wondered if somewhere someone was having the other half of the conversation and straining to hear my replies too – if we were not perhaps really talking without even knowing it.”

Thor strokes Loki’s arm and pulls him against him, kissing the top of his head;

“Maybe we were after all,” he thinks aloud – “I never believed any of that one-true-love crap but I know that I have been lost my whole life without you and now –”

Loki twists to look at him, querying –

“Now?”

“I only had to see you to know that you were part of me. My Loki, my brother, my life – I will never let you go again.”

“If I were someone else I might regret thinking that my family ever really had –” Loki says, somewhat complexly – “But I’m not. I don’t do regret. But I do suspect that you never really did.”

“Never,” Thor agrees – “Nineteen years – wasted. I would not go that many minutes again without you by my side.”

“You are actually hopeless,” Loki sighs, smiling faintly – “But I’ve been thinking –”

“Yes?”

“You remember that happy ending we were talking about. The one where we ride off into the sunset with me on the back of your bike? The dumb one, the one that’s not gonna happen?”

“Yes?”

“I’m thinking perhaps it’s not so dumb. I always wanted to see New York.”

“New York….” Thor exhales a whistle – “What you gonna do – pursue the stage?”

“Oh, you joke now –” Thor does not need to be able to see his face to catch the twinkle in Loki’s eye.

“Very well,” Thor kisses Loki’s head and though he doesn’t say _anything for you princess_ he is slightly appalled to hear himself thinking it – “Do you want to tell Heimdall or shall I?”

They argue about this for several minutes before Loki starts to giggle.

“What?” Thor frowns, “What’s funny?”

“Well you are now, because slow as I’ve just been being, I’m not as slow as you.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Thor, my brother, you’re an idiot – _he already knows.”_

__x__

 

**One more chapter to go! Though I hope you’ll all meet us in New York for the sequel! And yes, if anyone has noticed, the number 19 is becoming a little recurring and relevant isn’t it….wonder where that could be going…. :-) First person to get this reference may get a dedication in part two! :-)**


	13. Chapter 13

**13.**

There is a strange tone to the audience tonight; a feeling in the club itself like the final night of a stage tour, almost as if the bar itself were closing forever tomorrow. Could it be that there is something sad in the barman's golden eyes tonight, in the infinitesimally slower pace with which he serves the drinks? Surely there could not be. And yet he moves, it seems, in greater silence than before and the bar girls weave their way through the crowd as though they are automatons moving in a dance they have long ago set the moves for themselves and are now retracing from the pattern of their fate. If you looked hard enough, you could almost see the shimmering strands of the weave they are constantly creating glimmer green in the air and disperse through the crowd. Only Heimdall sees Vi turn to her sisters and smile a sad smile that none of them return.

Yet the prevalent air is not of sadness but of a poised, balanced kind of joy and in the man Heimdall has come to depend upon, perched on a bar stool like the first night he was here – the joy is not tremulous but ripe and bounding. He never quite sits still, like a puppy, brimming with jubilant excitement.

Was it really only a month ago? Heimdall wonders, knowing that it was, though the passage of time becomes ambiguous with the amount of it he sees passing. A month since the stranger came, sun in his hair and the sky in his eyes. The stranger who was no stranger at all, just as Loki was not when he came. The stranger who looked so calm and yet brought the thunder in his wake, whose deep silent sadness had seemed as irremovable as a black rock – seemed it inaccurately, as Heimdall had been well aware.

Earlier that day the two of them had come to the bar in the early afternoon; both of them slipping casually, far too casually into bar stools side by side, looking at each other like guilty children, neither of them wanting to be the one to say the thing, but both of them nervous with the need to say it. Loki had fiddled with his drink, toying with the glass while Thor drained his in awkward slurping silence. Then, they had taken it in turns to open their mouths, start to make a noise and then stop. Heimdall had watched, half amused for a moment, wondering if it was the new found knowledge that they were brothers that was making them behave more like each other than ever – for despite coming from two polar opposites of doing so, they always had been more alike than either was even faintly willing to admit. Eventually, Heimdall had shaken his head in gentle despair at the both of them.

"I  _know"_ he said, gently but insistently – "You can relax, the both of you – Loki, you're leaving, tonight, after your act – which you want to ask me about and I tell you it's fine. Just go, both of you. Ride off into your sunset." He does not add  _you deserve it,_  though he tone implies it most heavily.

They both of them immediately sink with relief, Loki finally draining his drink –

"Thanks Heimdall," he says, and in a vast remove from character means it – "Means a lot".

"Go on," Heimdall says gruffly – "Get out of my bar."

They grin at each other in a way that makes Heimdall wonder, truly for the first time, if something lost really cannot be restored, for he is fairly sure he can see it here as the boys – for so they seem once more – head out the door hand in hand.

In the theme of the day- and it seems that the theme is  _goodbye-_ they ride up to the dunes overlooking the factory. Without discussing it Thor waits with the bike while Loki walks halfway down the hill to look out over the chimney scape in the late afternoon warmth. Thor just watches Loki as though he never means to let him out of his sight, a slight dark figure against the sun, hands in his pickets, hair rustling back lightly in the breeze.  _Loki,_ he thinks and the thought is big enough to fill his head, heat and body, indeed too big for them all for he feels that clutching squeezing at the heart again that he has started to become accustomed to these past few weeks. He wonders if it will always be this way, if he can live with so much love inside. He suspects that he can and wonders, in response to his rambling thoughts, what Loki is thinking as he looks out across the factory with faraway eyes.

Loki is wondering how it happened that he actually allowed himself to become attached to these places and to these times of the day. To the smells, and feels, and breath of a place. He had never before held any more faith in a place than in a person and then – first the club, then this place and then Thor. He wonders if it will always be this way now, if he can live with so much love inside. It still scares him, and he runs his eyes like fingers over the familiar cracked window panes and chimneys below –  _nineteen sets of chimney stacks_ he thinks, the counting soothing over the concern of feeling love –  _nineteen sets of stacks, nineteen flat rooftops, one hundred and nineteen broken windows, four days shy of a year I've managed to live in this one place, three hundred and sixty one why but of course, nineteen by nineteen –_ when did this cease to surprise? When did nineteen begin to spell inevitable?  _When did I feel it in the wind that lifts the sand, that flecks the shoes like sunlight and never quite scrubs away._   _Am I to be caught up and carried on that wind?_

"Well Loki –" Thor says, coming over finally and wrapping his arms around his waist, resting his cheek atop Loki's head – "Are you done?" Loki smiles, wondering how Thor knew that he was. He nods, taking a deep breath, heart more at peace than he can even trust.

"Yes," he says quietly, smiling – "Yes, well and truly." And is that an echo they can hear when they turn to share those smiles, an echo of their words trailing across reality? Or can you, if you listen hard enough, hear the murmur of the earth rotating beneath your feet? Then drown it out in the kick start of a motor and throw a sandstorm of dust into the gently skittering sand and return to _The Lokasenna_ for surely the final time.

(There is never a final time, not to visit this place, not in a universe of infinite time and possibility. You will never visit any place for the very last time any more than visit the exact same place ever again.)

Loki leaves Thor at the bar as he makes his farewells, to the trailer and the dressing room, to the strange backstage and the darkened doors. There is a sadness here, but it is not heavy. It is the kind of sadness that can almost be enjoyed. And when the stage lights come on and Thor swivels round on his stool, drink in hand, it is like being thrown back to the first time he was here and his gaze is captivated by the smiling lounge singer in the sequinned green jacket and top hat, cane in hand as he dazzles into the microphone, illuminating the room. The man who took his upside down life and shook it until somehow, as if by accident, he juggled it back round the right way. He grins and from under his hat Loki grins back and throws a wink his way that every person in that room that night would ever after have sworn was intended for them. They don't even care anymore that is impossible to know what to expect here these days, which Loki will be appearing on that stage. It's not like the club really has regulars anyway.

"Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, and oh, everything else we have out there –" Loki purrs into the mike, same seductive purr as the first words Thor heard out of him – "I'm here tonight with the sad news that you all –" he sighs melodramatically – "You all won't be seeing me in these parts for a very long time. That's right folks, I'm leaving for the big apple with my beautiful blonde – wishing you all our love!"

Thor face palms, groans and chuckles all at the same time while the music dances in and Loki swirls and flourishes his cane into a rendition of "New York, New York". Even Heimdall leans on the bar near Thor to watch, a tolerant half smile on the face he leans in his hands. When Loki has finished he pats Thor heavily on the shoulder and takes his pint glass.

Thor watches Loki enthralled, all the way to the end of the act. He still hates the style, though it no longer seems to matter. Only Loki matters.

At the end of the set Loki dances off the front of the stage, blowing kisses across the tables as he cuts through them to the bar and tries to bounce up into Thor's lap, arms around his neck, Thor disentangles him gently, laughing –

"Bar stool, Loki, bar stool! It's not gonna happen!"

Loki laughs and grins, sticking his tongue out between his teeth as he does –

"How was I, how was I, how was I?" he babbles happily. Thor slides off the stool to hold him tenderly and still.

"You were –" he smiles fondly. "The campest, loveliest thing I have ever seen."

"Mmmm," Loki purrs, and leans in for a kiss, eyes closed, theatrical in the knowledge that a lot more than half the club is watching them as though this is still part of the act. Well, perhaps it is. There is a gentle ripple of people murmuring  _aww_ as they kiss and kiss deeply, and when Loki breaks away he bows to the crowd, hat on heart and cane outstretched –

"And they say that it's "Not natural"," he announces with a grin. Nobody here does, or would dare and the crowd simply laugh and applaud as Loki throws his cane through the air for anyone to catch, takes Thor by the hand and whirls him out the front door in a flurry that feels to him a little like stardom. Thor follows Loki's every lead in faintly smiling bemusement, kissing him again beside Mjolnir and sighing his name in affectionate tolerance.

"They're gonna  _love_ me in New York!" Loki crows as he leaps like a dancer onto the back of Thor's bike. Thor smiles as Loki tightens his arms around his waist and he kick starts the bike.

The sunset is still thoughtfully lingering as they roar out across the highway, Loki's coat tails flapping in the breeze from the exhaust. As they fade into the orange distance that will soon become the here and now nothing remains but a sequinned green top hat that blows across the highway in the dust left in their wake.

_x_

**Thank you for joining us on this fine motorbike ride, it's been possibly the most fun I have ever had writing a story and I am happier with this ending and the thing as a whole than with almost anything else I've written– So much as I've said that I can't leave this AU and have to write a sequel – "Vagabond Shoes", coming very soon! Thank you all you lovely people who have commented and kept this coming faster and I do hope you will join me in New York!**

… **.also yes, I did pinch a line from "Velvet Goldmine" in this chapter, thumbs up to those who noticed!**

***Shameless plug* Please also, if you wish, to join me in my new AU starting soon, a Roman Gladiator Thor thing I have not yet thought up a name for!**

**Little extra thing – I got the name of this fic from an amazing poem by A.E Housman that is still as relevant today I think a sit was 100 years ago. Here's the whole poem, I adore it!**

"The laws of God, the laws of man,  
He may keep that will and can;  
Not I: let God and man decree  
Laws for themselves and not for me;  
And if my ways are not as theirs  
Let them mind their own affairs.  
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,  
Yet when did I make laws for them?  
Please yourselves, say I, and they  
Need only look the other way.  
But no, they will not; they must still  
Wrest their neighbor to their will,  
And make me dance as they desire  
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.  
And how am I to face the odds  
Of man's bedevilment and God's?  
I, a stranger and afraid  
In a world I never made.  
They will be master, right or wrong;  
Though both are foolish, both are strong.  
And since, my soul, we cannot fly  
To Saturn nor to Mercury,  
Keep we must, if keep we can,  
These foreign laws of God and man."

\- A.E HOUSMAN

**Author's Note:**

> Zedrobber's sketch for the first chapter can be found here: 
> 
> http://enemiesbrotherslovers.tumblr.com/image/76792435005
> 
> Also reblogged to my tumblr, here:
> 
> http://www.tumblr.com/blog/shadow-in-the-shade


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